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import contacts

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I have an old Mac with Thunderbird. When I transferred everything to new Mac, the Thunderbird address book was empty on the new Mac.

I exported my CONTACTS file and got an .abbu file. How do I import this into Thunderbird address book? (Apple's only other export format option is a pdf.)

Alternately, if I knew the name and location of my Thunderbird address book in the old Mac's USER files, I could copy this into new Mac's Thunderbird. How is this done?

(exporting from CONTACTS a vCard only exports the single contact currently displayed.)

I have an old Mac with Thunderbird. When I transferred everything to new Mac, the Thunderbird address book was empty on the new Mac. I exported my CONTACTS file and got an .abbu file. How do I import this into Thunderbird address book? (Apple's only other export format option is a pdf.) Alternately, if I knew the name and location of my Thunderbird address book in the old Mac's USER files, I could copy this into new Mac's Thunderbird. How is this done? (exporting from CONTACTS a vCard only exports the single contact currently displayed.)

All Replies (5)

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All I know is Windows, so this info may be useless: On Windows, the old name was abook.mab and in recent versions, it is abook.sqlite. In tools>addressbook, there should be an option to export as csv or ldif. And tools>import>import from a file should have an option for the old addressbook file. I hope this is of some help.

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Thanks. I found abook.mab on the old Mac, Thunderbird profile. And it imported into new Mac Thunderbird (102.15.0). Unfortunately it's 2009, and maybe it's under a different name? No sqlite.

What's more, even though it imported and works, I cannot find the file in the new Mac Thunderbird profile -- not as "abook" or anything else that looks suspicious.

The only export option on old Mac Thunderbird (102.15.0) is to export my entire profile, as a .zip. Unfortunately this file does not unzip: "Error 1 - Operation not permitted." YES, I can view/port the unzipped profile. Maybe it contains a later address book, but I can't find any file title that might be it.

In any case, thank you!!!

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I'm pleased it works. Since you are on a current version, check the export feature on the addressbook pane, as it is different from the tools>export on main pain. Highlight an addressbook on left side and there should be three dots to the right. Click that and a menu opens with export options (at least that's how it works in Windows).

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Thanks. There is only the one single same export option, whether in address book or inbox. Which is to export my entire profile, zipped. So what I need to know is the name of the address file in profile, besides the 2009 MAB file.

Also, a related question: how do I export my old profile into either Mac? I deleted the email account for Sprynet and switched to Comcast. So I don't know how to install the old profile (with decades of emails)...?

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Actually, still big problem. I imported the 2009 abook.mab file, and it displayed more than 100 entries. But when I went back there later, there were only 12. So I imported the 100+ addresses again, but there appears no way to SAVE the refreshed address book (on new Mac).