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How to recover lost phone numbers when importing .vcf files to TB Address Book

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  • 1 has this problem
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  • Last reply by Matt

bobturn2
bobturn2
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I'm posting this solution because I couldn't find a solution on any support forum.

I was importing a .vcf file into Address Book (TB 68.11.0 running on Win10) that was exported from Apple Contacts on a Mac. The home and business phone numbers seem to get lost in the process.

My solution was to convert the .vcf file to .csv, then import the .csv file into Address Book instead of importing the .vcf file. When you import a .csv file, Address Book gives the option of aligning or matching fields between Address Book's format and the imported .csv's data layout.

You can find a "Free VCF file to CSV or Excel converter" at https://sourceforge.net/projects/bulkvcftocsv/ It is a script that requires a fairly current version of Excel running in macro mode but it did the job automatically.

I'm posting this solution because I couldn't find a solution on any support forum. I was importing a .vcf file into Address Book (TB 68.11.0 running on Win10) that was exported from Apple Contacts on a Mac. The home and business phone numbers seem to get lost in the process. My solution was to convert the .vcf file to .csv, then import the .csv file into Address Book instead of importing the .vcf file. When you import a .csv file, Address Book gives the option of aligning or matching fields between Address Book's format and the imported .csv's data layout. You can find a "Free VCF file to CSV or Excel converter" at https://sourceforge.net/projects/bulkvcftocsv/ It is a script that requires a fairly current version of Excel running in macro mode but it did the job automatically.

All Replies (3)

Matt
Matt
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I think you will find this operates differently in V78 which is already in the release channel. V78 uses a much later version of the vCard standard that was the case in 68.

I might also point out that unless recent versions of Excel fix it, it creates ASCII 

text files, while Thunderbird expects Unicode text files.  So a step is required to open the CSV in notepad and change the exported CSV text format.  Or you can use libreoffice which uses unicode without having to import it.
bobturn2
bobturn2 Question owner
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Thanks Matt. The reason I am using TB v68 is that I have some email accounts on Exchange Server for business so I am using the ExQuilla Exchange addon to access them. Does TB v78 support Exchange Server yet? If yes, I will definitely upgrade.

Matt
Matt
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From the same folks that offer exquilla, and the addon Thunderbird automatically offers when an exchange account is detected by the new account wizard.

https://addons.thunderbird.net/en-US/thunderbird/addon/owl-for-exchange/?src=userprofile

I know the exquilla was originally written by Kent James and he passed it to Beonex when he retired to do good works in the prison system. I do not know what the forward plan is with this, but I really do not see Ben actually maintaining two addons going forward to basically achieve the same thing. However he does say the exquilla does not support V78 see https://www.exquilla.com/ So I suggest you drop him a line and ask where t find the updated addon.