On the notebook. On the toolbar > Help> troubleshooting information Click the show profile button. Close Thunderbird (corruption may occur if it is running for the next step) copy the file abook.mab to a usb drive

On your other computer reverse the process and replace the abook.mab file in the profile folder with the one from your notebook

Restart Thunderbird, your address book should be back to normal.

Hi Matt: Yes, helpful in that I now have a deeper knowledge of Thunderbird, but unfortunately, I still don't have my Address Book on my desktop computer. I guess I must be missing an important step.

I was able to find the abook.mab file on my notebook. I did remember to shut down Thunderbird before copying it to a USB drive.

(A small aside here: for some reason, the Thunderbird on my notebook does not have a toolbar, but I found "Trouble Shooting Information" in the Help menu.)

I found eleven instances of abook.mab on my Desktop which I deleted (after saving the most recent under another name, just in case). I then pasted the abook.mab file from my notebook into two of these locations, C:\ Users\Hugmans\4vbtvsta.default and C:\Users\Hugmans\AppData\ Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\4vbtvsta.default.

The result: no change. I have a Personal Address Book, with a few entries that I have made recently, and Collected Addresses, as before. This is surprising because I thought that I had deleted all address book files from my desktop before pasting in the file from my notebook.

I don't know if this is significant but when I installed Thunderbird, I migrated my address book from Eudora. It appears in the Thunderbird on my notebook as Eudora Nicknames.

I hope that i've described my situation clearly and fully enough so that you can help me.

Thank you for your prompt response.

Bernie Friedman

did you turn the toolbat off? that would make Thunderbird very difficult to use. View menu > Toolbars and turn them ALL on.

If you found troubleshooting information. Then you found the show profile button. Please use it. It drops you into the correct current profile. Both for the initial copy and nd the subsequent paste.

Given you found multiple copies of files it is fairly obvious you are using windows search. Please unlearn that behavior. Unless you have modified windows search or your other windows default it will not find any of the files in your Thunderbird profile as it is located in a hidden folder windows search does not search. It actually only searches a very small part of your hard disk.

Hi Matt: I'm sure that I'm testing your patience, but I have to report that I still can't copy my address book from my notebook to my desktop. I hope that I can give you some clues by describing in detail what I have done.

First, though, I should clarify the issue of the tool bar. There is 3-bar icon on the tool bar in my desktop Thunderbird. Following the steps from your first message, I was able to display the profile directory and find the address book file, abook.mab. There is no 3-bar icon on the the Thunderbird tool bar in my notebook. I checked View on the Menu bar and noted that Toolbars was checked. I recalled that the second step in displaying the profile is Help and and so I selected Help on the Menu Bar. In the drop-down menu was Troubleshooting Information which of course, gave me Show Profile.

I noticed that the toolbars in the two installations are very different so I checked the versions. The desktop is 17.09 and the notebook is 45.2 . Why are they different? I loaded Thunderbird on my desktop last year when Mozilla stopped supporting Eudora which I had used since 1996. A posting on Google told me that migrating files from Eudora to Thunderbird was easiest with version 17.09. I was able to find an on-line source and so that's what I still have on my desktop. I purchased the notebook early this year and downloaded Thunderbird to it from the Mozilla website. Apparently I had no trouble copying my address book and all my mail boxes from my desktop to my notebook.

So, to sum up my problem, a couple of months ago, the Thunderbird address book on my desktop computer disappeared, to be replaced with a almost empty Personal Address book and Collected Addresses. So, I want to copy the Thunderbird address book on my notebook to my desktop. I have identified the location/path of the address book file in my notebook and the target location in my desktop. With the exception of the name of the disk, Acer (C): vs Local Disk (C):, they are identical: User\Hugman\AppData\Roaming\ Thunderbird\Profiles\ 4vbtvsta.default. After locating the address book file, abook.mab, on the notebook, I closed Thunderbird and copied the file to a USB drive and then to the equivalent location on my desktop.

The result: the address books on the desktop are unchanged.

Thank you for your patience.

Bernie Friedman

can you post an image of the screen on the V45? See https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-do-i-create-screenshot-my-problem

I am interested in what you do see. Not all that relevant to your issue, but still a "what the" for me.

The only think I can think of is that Thunderbird is still running when you insert to file. Atl+Ctrl+Delete and select task manager Check in processes that the Thunderbird process is actually not running when you try to copy the file into place, and copy the file initially really.

The only other "way" I can see you doing this is with an add-on. The more function for address book will export and import the file as VCF, but not as the personal address book.

https://freeshell.de//~kaosmos/morecols-en.html

Hi Matt: I thought I'd send you the image you asked for before dealing with the rest of ur msg. Hope it's useful even tho' it doesn't deal directly with my problem. I'm also send the Troubleshooting Information screen because it identifies the version from which I took the first image.

I tried to capture the dropdown menu from Help in the menu bar but it closes when I try to snip. However, I reproduced the contents: Help Contents F1 Troubleshooting Information What's New Restart with Add-ons Disabled About Thunderbird

By the way, I used the Windows Snipping Tool. Makes the job very easy. if there are any other images you'd like.

Another thing: The abook.mab file that I copied into the my desktop ended up in two locations; the first as I described in my last message; the second in 4vbtvasta.default in my personal directory, i.e. hugmans. In my previous message, I mentioned finding the original file that I'm trying to replace in 11 locations. I recall some of these were shortcuts and I think that the search also included my backup drive. I deleted all of these. I know that the file that I now have in these two loactions on my desktop is the file from my notebook because the "date last modified" is 28 April 2016.

Bernie Friedman

As you have found the snipping tool can not get menu entries... pressing prnt screen does, but requires the extra step of pasting the image into paint brush and cropping it.

Your do have a toolbar, that bit with the Get Messages on it. If you have not customised it to how you like it. do the following Right click it, select Customize. In the customize dialog click the restore default set.

That should add a search dialog and the application menu that started me on this silly quest.

_____________________________________________________________

Now to what interests you.

As I said copying the file with the Thunderbird process running can cause issues. The second thing is to ensure that the file is in the folder that opens when you click the show profile button in the troubleshooting information.

As an aside, what anti virus are you using?

Hi Matt:

(i'm adding to my first response tour last msg. Please see the end of this.)

I restored the Tool Bar on my Thunderbird 45.2 (on my notebook) as you suggested. It now includes the Apps icon, as well as several other functions that I don't recognize as yet. I don't know why I didn't have the default version; I'm not sophisticated enough to want to customize anything.

I did open the Task manager to confirm that Thunderbird is truly closed after I close it.

I'm using the Avanquest anti-virus free down load.

The path in the Window when I select Show Profile is the path that I used to paste the the abook.mab file. The Date modified is the date of the file in my notebook.

I'm going to take a look at your add-on proposal. I'll get back to you.

Thank you for your patience, persistence and interest in my problem.

This is what I've added:

Matt, I'm willing to try anything. If you think that using an add-on will get my address book back, let's do it. However, I'm not sure that I can get started with what you've sent me, particularly after following the "kaos" link. I was able to follow your step-by-step instruction for copying a file from my notebook to my desktop. Can we work out a similar step-by-step procedure for using the add-on?

Bernie

Hi Matt:

Was it something I said? I haven't had a reply to my message of last Tuesday that I amended the next day.

Seriously, I think I need your help in using the add-on to copy my address book from my notebook to my desktop. Perhaps I've used up my share of your time and you have to move on to help somebody else. If so, pleasew lewt me know and I'll look for other sources, perhaps thru' Google.

Please let me know.

Bernie Friedman

Hi Matt: I haven't seen a reply to my last "question owner posting" two weeks ago. Does this mean that I have exceeded my limit or that you have lost interest in my problem? I'm still unable to copy my address from my notebook to my desktop computer and view it.

I am sure that I have copied the Address Book from my notebook to the correct path/location because I can see the abook.mab file with the 4/28/2016 "Date modified" in the Profile Folder. That's the last time I used the notebook for mail.

However, I did notice difference between the Address Book windows. The left panel of the notebook window has four buttons: All Address Books (with a pull-down) and Personal Address Book, Eudora Nicknames and Collected Addresses. (I imported my Address Book and Mail Boxes from Eudora that I had used since 1996 when I installed Thunderbird on my desktop last year.) I may be wrong, but I'm sure that's what the Thunderbird Address Book on my desktop used to look like, until last June. Now the left panel has two bars only: Personal Address Book and Collected Addresses.

Could it be that all I have to do is remind Thunderbird about my Eudora Nicknames? How do I do that?

I hope to hear from you.

Bernie Friedman