It's a bug in the new version. They claim to be working on it.

denbeau53 said

When I open Thunderbird for first time in the morning, and compose an email, the address book that shows is, "All Address Books", instead of the one I use the most. I have 5 not included the, All Address Books, Personal Address Book, and Collected Address. This seams to be a recent thing and not something I choose. It used to be what ever address book I used last would stay. Now it always goes to "All Address Books" after the program is closed and re-opened. Thanks for your help! Dennis

Thanks... looking forward to the fix!

I am using the latest release of Thunderbird (38.5.0) and it is behaving in a similar fashion, except that the default now seems to be "Collected Addresses"! I can select another address book, and it remains selected for the duration of a computer session, but after shutting down and restarting the computer, T-Bird reverts to the default "Collected Addresses". My computer is an Apple iMac, but my wife is running T-Bird on a Toshiba laptop with Windows 8.1, and it is doing exactly the same thing. The problem seems to have only arisen with T-Bird 38.5.0. How can I change the default permanently to "All Address Books" (which is what I want it to remain on)?

Now that is a new one! You are the first that actually wants it to be All Address Books.

I do not have that answer though. I have seen claims that the version that you are on fixed it but I do not know. I am on version 31.6 and holding until they get the address book thing worked out.

I suggest that you start your own thread with these details and see what everyone has to say.

Just copy and paste your post above to save some typing.