Thunderbird has two address books by default. It would help to know which one you are talking about. They are the Personal and the Collected books.

The Personal book gets contacts that you manually enter into it. This is the default operation. If you have changed the default operation then other entry might be involved.

The Collected book by default collects any email address that your send a message to. Once again this is the default operation.

Where you change these defaults can be found in Options.

From the Menu Bar select Tools-Options-Advanced-Addressing

If your menu bar is hidden, press the alt key to make it appear.

The other possibility is that you have an online address book and you have added software to have Thunderbird sync with that address book. I can only tell you what the default operation for Thunderbird is. I am not very good at guessing how users modify the defaults.

It would also help for correct terms to be used so we understand what you are asking about Thunderbird has Address Books to store contacts in. Inside of those address books you can create Mailing Lists. These are list of contacts that you regularly send messages to and instead of adding those contacts one at a time to a message you can just add the list in the address field. For a contact to be added to a mailing list they have to exist in the address book the list is created in.

Thanx Airmail -

I am using the default. I send no email using Tbird other than to the list collectively - NO individual email.

I'm guessing the online is the issue but I have added NO software to update Tbird or ANY other email.

I primarily use Windows Live Mail on my other systems. A few of my WLM contacts are turning up in TBird - it has to come from online as I said the ONLY time I use this system is to send email to a list using Tbird. ALL other email is either from my phone using ATT or another system which does not have Tbird.

Is there a setting in TBird that will update from online?

Thanx!

Vic

Airmail said

It would also help for correct terms to be used so we understand what you are asking about Thunderbird has Address Books to store contacts in. Inside of those address books you can create Mailing Lists. These are list of contacts that you regularly send messages to and instead of adding those contacts one at a time to a message you can just add the list in the address field. For a contact to be added to a mailing list they have to exist in the address book the list is created in.

I installed TBird - I accepted all defaults - I used the Personal Address book and I created a Mailing list and I insert that list in the email. That's ALL I do on that system and ALL I do with Tbird. I use a unique mailserver for the Tbird account. Yet, some of my contacts from my WLM account show up in the MAILING LIST.

Hope this helps clarify - I did go into TB options and uncheck add addresses when I send. Thanx

As stated Thunderbird does not add contacts to the Personal book by default. It also does not sync with any online address books without the addition of add on software.

Understood - now I have to figure out WHAT that software is and how such add on software got on a system that is only used once a month and is only operated by me. Considering that I build networks for a living, I would darn well know if something *extra* had been added to my system.

Thanx for trying....

Vic

You might find something here http://kb.mozillazine.org/Sharing_address_books

Thanx Gnospen - something to browse. I understand HOW it can be done which would normally mean look for how and undo it but I don't even use a browser on that system. I use it ONLY for TBird and I am the only one using the system.

I'll just have to dig and see if something was pushed from the mail server. I have a suspicion though - when I initially set up this system, I tried to use my WLM Hotmail account to handle the list but it insisted on adding the list to my personal address book. that's why I went to Tbird, because it had no direct connect to Hotmail or WLM. I uninstalled WLM but perhaps something, a dll possibly remained and it trying to occasionally sync my Tbird contacts with my WLM.

A big PITA and a mystery.

Thanx,

Vic