There are no sub folders in Thunderbird address books. There are Mailing Lists that can be created in address books. To be on a mailing list the contact must exist in the address book that the mailing list is created in. Make a new address book for Family if that is what you want to do.

First, I started using Thunderbird yesterday after using Outlook Express for more than ten years. I am getting a headache from attempting to learn how to do the "normal email tasks" using this new program. (A forced change of the operating system removed Outlook Express.)

Second, I am used to the hierarchy structure in which sub-folders exist under upper level folders to facilitate the organization of data. The fact that "mailing lists" are created under an "Address Book" creates what appears to be a hierarchy structure similar to that used for the directory structures of files in DOS and Windows operating systems.

I do not use "mailing lists" to send mail to groups of people. I view the "Address Book" as a convenient place to organize email and phone information.

Third, the major problem that I am having is an inability to place my daughter-in-laws name and phone number into what you call the "mailing list" (Family) which is in the "Personal Address Book"! It does not get copied!

What do I need to do in order to "copy" entries from the "Address Book" to the "Mailing List" listed in that "Address Book"?

First off this is not Outlook Express so what you are used to does not matter.

Mailing lists are for sending to groups without having to enter all the contacts each time. That is all. They are not sub folders like I stated before. If you look at them they have a field for name and email address. A mailing list is not going to do what you seem determined to do. Go to the menu in the address book window and select File-New-Address Book. Create different books if you want to sort contact into groups.

I think you are not understanding the problem that I am having. I created a new "Address Book" with the name "Personal Address Book". Within that "Address Book" are two "mailing lists". One is specified as "Government". The second is specified as "Family." I did not have any problems entering data for several representatives into the "Government" "mailing list" folder.

I was able to enter the information for my son into both the "Personal Address Book" and the "Family" "mailing list" folder. However, attempts to enter the information for my daughter-in-law show only in the "Personal Address Book", but cannot be copied to the "Family" "mailing list" folder. I believe I used the same steps as had been done with the other information.

I do not understand why what appears to be the simply operation of highlighting the data as shown in the "Personal Address Book" and then sliding it into the "Family" folder does not work, when that process worked well with other information.

Is it impossible to have only a single "mailing list" within a given "Address Book"? If so, why was I able to create a second "mailing list" that has only one name in it?

Formally, a Mailing List is a subset of its parent address book. Its intended purpose is to allow a group of addressees to be treated as a single item. So if you have a Mailing List named Family, and it contains the email addresses of members of your family, then an email addressed using the Family Mailing List will be sent to all your family members included in that Mailing List. In other mail clients it may be called a Group or a Distribution List.

I see no point in creating a "Government" Mailing List, since it seems most unlikely that you'd wish to send the same email message to multiple different government departments. You really need a separate address book for that kind of categorization.

With respect to your comment regarding a "Government" Mailing List, our State has two legislative and one senate representative in each district. It is often desirable to send messages to all of the State representatives regarding specific legislation. I also know several of their aides, and correspond directly with them.

We have a new Congressman. I am learning which of his aides can be helpful.

It is extremely seldom that I send an email to several people at one time. If I have need to do that, I send the email to one of my alternate addresses and put all of the intended recipients in the BCC list to keep the email addresses confidential.

It would appear that it is not possible to remove the "Personal Address Book" header. I am not sure how the "Collected Addresses" gets information, and whether that collection of "random" addresses can be blocked or automatically controlled.

Personally I wouldn't touch Outlook but thats my opinion.

There are ways to copy your outlook address book to Tbird's ,if you can export it in a csv-file (comma-separated(,) not semicolon (;) )

"Collected Addresses" is addresses you sent to. Can be turned of in Tools/option/composition

The name of personal address book and collected addresses are locked.

List's can be seen as index of what address to use from the address book its associated with. (clearer?) One way of "copying" an address into a list is drag and drop, another is open list and start typing and you get suggestions.

A name can have several email adresses. That way you don't have to make list's when there is a few addresses. (you can chose any or all) An Add-On MoreFunctionsForAddressBook gives you even more.

To maintain Tbird, keep compacting your boxes regularly (deletes deleted emails). move to local folders and make regular backups.

Let's back up a bit. A Mailing List is not a subfolder, despite its appearance. You can't MOVE a Contact into a Mailing List, but you can COPY a Contact into a Mailing List. So any Contact in a Mailing List must exist in the parent address book.

If you don't habitually send a message to multiple recipients then you haven't any need for Mailing Lists.

OTOH you have suggested that in fact you may wish to send the same message to various government officers, in which case a Mailing List may be useful. You can of course create multiple mailing addresses; so if you write to A, B and C on tax matters, you can create a Mailing List named Tax constining A, B and C. If you write to B, C and D on defense matters, then you create a Mailing List named Defense containing B, C and D. If you frequently want to bombard everyone indiscrminately with the same message, then create another Mailing List called All and containing A, B, C D and all the way up to Z. Mailing Lists are subsets. The can intersect, as we see in a Venn diagram.

Personal Address Book and Collected Addresses are hard-coded into Thunderbird. If you delete the underlying data files they will simply be re-created the next time you run Thunderbird.

You can, as gnospen said, disable or modify the collection of addresses. You can arrange for such collection to go to another address book of your choice, or disable it altogether. I'd advise against writing them into a "working" address book, simply because it will become polluted by what you perceive to be random addresses. Leave it set to write to Collected Addresses and you know that the random addresses are contained.

You can rename both Personal Address Book and Collected Addresses via the Config Editor, though I have never understood the motivation to do so.

How do you, internally, go about organizing or choosing whom to address a message? Some users seem to be visual and like to pick from a list and ask how to see their address book when composing their message. To them I point out the Contacts Sidebar. In the Write window, press F9 to see a small address book at the left. You can select Contacts from this to add to your message.

For myself, I mentally visualise the intended recipient, and then start typing his name or address straight into the addressing box. Thunderbird will quickly start offering contacts form my address books which match what I've typed.

In this second case, it doesn't matter which address book any contact is stored in, since it will be found wherever it is. So I may as well just put all of my contacts into Personal Address Book, since no further organization or subdivision is actually needed.

If you feel a need to organize your contacts, then create new address books as required. When using the contacts sidebar, it shows only one address book at a time, so for the visual types amongst us, it winnows down the displayed addresses to the selected address book. Create a "Government" address book, select it, and the Contacts Sidebar will show only your legislative correspondents.