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Preventing synchronization of Thunderbird address book with Gmail contact list

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Background: I realize that synchronizing a cellphone with Gmail accounts has great value for the vast majority of people, but it is a great annoyance for me. Gmail has loaded hundreds of email addresses into Contacts on my new cellphone. Since only a few of the entries have phone numbers recorded I would like to remove all the Gmail contacts from the cellphone and enter a very small number of contacts manually.

Question: Is there a setting in Thunderbird which severs a connection between Gmail contacts and Thunderbird contacts so I can delete them from the cellphone without fear of deleting them from Thunderbird. (I'll deal with Google Support to find out if I can sever a connection between Contacts on the cell phone and Gmail.)

'''Background''': I realize that synchronizing a cellphone with Gmail accounts has great value for the vast majority of people, but it is a great annoyance for me. Gmail has loaded hundreds of email addresses into Contacts on my new cellphone. Since only a few of the entries have phone numbers recorded I would like to remove all the Gmail contacts from the cellphone and enter a very small number of contacts manually. '''Question''': Is there a setting in Thunderbird which severs a connection between Gmail contacts and Thunderbird contacts so I can delete them from the cellphone without fear of deleting them from Thunderbird. (I'll deal with Google Support to find out if I can sever a connection between Contacts on the cell phone and Gmail.)

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One thing you might do is, in the gmail website, set it so that only you enter contacts. That stops having them continually added. That is an important step, as that stops the unwanted growth of contacts. Now, Thunderbird uses its own address book, not Gmail's, so this should not be an issue. You can delete the unwanted emails from the gmail website.