This site will have limited functionality while we undergo maintenance to improve your experience. If an article doesn't solve your issue and you want to ask a question, we have our support community waiting to help you at @FirefoxSupport on Twitter and/r/firefox on Reddit.

Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

I uninstalled Thunderbird, forgetting to copy my contacts. Ouch, help

more options

Can I recover my address book that was saved within Thunderbird, not that I have uninstalled? I don't think I backed up.

Can I recover my address book that was saved within Thunderbird, not that I have uninstalled? I don't think I backed up.

Chosen solution

I don't know of any stand-alone tools for working with mab files. I think re-installing Thunderbird, just for the process of exporting them, may be the most productive route forward.

I suggest you choose the CSV file format as it is the most universal and likely to be useful to you later on.

In Thunderbird, open the Address Book, select "All Address Books" then Tools|Export. It will open a file browser where you can navigate to where you want to save the file, give it a name and choose the "comma separated" file type. It will repeat this process for each of your address books (Personal Address Book, Collected Addresses, etc).

Read this answer in context 👍 0

All Replies (4)

more options

Search your disk for files with a *.mab filename pattern. Those files, collectively, represent your Address Book, though I don't know what use they will be outside Thunderbird.

more options

I found three files. Thank you very much . What do I do now?

more options

Seçilmiş Həll

I don't know of any stand-alone tools for working with mab files. I think re-installing Thunderbird, just for the process of exporting them, may be the most productive route forward.

I suggest you choose the CSV file format as it is the most universal and likely to be useful to you later on.

In Thunderbird, open the Address Book, select "All Address Books" then Tools|Export. It will open a file browser where you can navigate to where you want to save the file, give it a name and choose the "comma separated" file type. It will repeat this process for each of your address books (Personal Address Book, Collected Addresses, etc).

more options

Thank you very much. That's it recovered! Thank you