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migrating thunderbird addressbooks from an older TB

  • 5 cavab
  • 1 has this problem
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  • Last reply by sfhowes

DougBain
DougBain
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I have retrieved profile files from a crashed PC and want to transfer the addressbooks to TB on a new PC but the TB versions are incompatible. The suggested solution is to copy abook.mab and history.mab from one profile folder to another, overwriting the existing files. However, the addressbook files in the old profile are abook.mab.bak, abook.sqlite and history.mab.bak and history.sqlite. Overwriting the new abook.mab and history.mab with these old profile files doesn't work. What can I do? Is there any way of extracting the .mab files from the .sqlite ones?

I have retrieved profile files from a crashed PC and want to transfer the addressbooks to TB on a new PC but the TB versions are incompatible. The suggested solution is to copy abook.mab and history.mab from one profile folder to another, overwriting the existing files. However, the addressbook files in the old profile are abook.mab.bak, abook.sqlite and history.mab.bak and history.sqlite. Overwriting the new abook.mab and history.mab with these old profile files doesn't work. What can I do? Is there any way of extracting the .mab files from the .sqlite ones?

All Replies (5)

Stans
Stans
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Did you restart Thunderbird after restoring the mab files? Also, what version is the new pc running that is not compatible with the files from the old pc?

DougBain
DougBain Question owner
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Thanks for replying. Yes, I did restart TB after restoring the mab files. My new TB version is 68.10.0 (64-bit)

sfhowes
sfhowes
  • Top 10 Contributor
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Rename the abook and history sqlite files to .sqlite.bak, and remove the .bak from the abook and history mab files. When TB 78 restarts, it should convert the mab files into sqlite files.

DougBain
DougBain Question owner
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It retrieves the last 5 recent addresses I added to the addressbook but the great majority are still missing

sfhowes
sfhowes
  • Top 10 Contributor
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That seems to suggest TB is reading the .sqlite.bak files instead of the .mab files when it rebuilds .sqlite files on restart. Export the current Personal Address Book and Collected Addresses to LDIF if they have new entries, then close TB, move the .sqlite and .sqlite.bak files out of the profile folder, leaving just the .mab files, restart TB, and see if the Personal Address Book and Collected Addresses show the old contacts.