Moving That Address Book

Hi All,

Recently I started using my old computer. Knowing that I would need certain files, I had backed up my Address Book with a LDIF extention from the Thunderbird program I had been using and placed it in the My Documents folder. After installing Thunderbird 1.5.0.9 I attempted to import the address book file. Bad news. What came over was a series of icons with no names attached. On the mail page when the Address Book button is opened, the file name abook.ldif appears between Personal and Collected. I thought that the imported information would appear in the Personal Address Book. In any case, something is wrong and I haven't been able to see any of my old addresses. Is there any hope of salvaging them?

 

Did you post the same identical message at another newsgroup?
I had replied to the post.

 

Westside,

Don't ask me how that happened. I don't recall double posting and I'm hoping that the moderator will remove these.

 

I must have been hallucinating, since I can't find my alleged reply. So, please, forgive me.
I would look at the .ldif file, right click|open with Notepad or Wordpad. If you don't see anything the export did not work. I did a test, and I can see all my addresses in an exported file. I have had a situation like that you described when I exported my wife's address book, from an AOL mail standalone, which no longer exists. It was supposed to be based on Netscape7 mail, and, consequently compatible with Thunderbird. The address book contained nearly 1000 addresses, but a good two third of them had nothing but the name.
Still 1/3 is better than nothing.
If the information is present you should be able to import the contents. As an example one address would have this info: dn: cn=NYTimes.com,mail=nytdirect@nytimes.com
objectclass: top
objectclass: person
objectclass: organizationalPerson
objectclass: inetOrgPerson
objectclass: mozillaAbPersonAlpha
cn: NYTimes.com
mail: nytdirect@nytimes.com
modifytimestamp: 0Z

 

Westside ...

This forum, three threads down.


Derfsch ...

Unless I'm greatly mistaken, all you would have had to do is save the abook.mab file, then copy it to your new profile folder.

 

Westside and Jim,

Here is my present situation. In my profile folder I have an address book file labled OLDabook.mab which contains 1.4 KB and another labled abook.mab which contains 3.89 KB. The second (3.89 KB) has the names and e-mail addresses that I am trying to install in the Address Book. So far I have been unsuccessful in moving that file so that when I open the mail page and click the Address Book button nothing is there. Now I don't even see the icons that I discussed in the first post using the .LDIF extension.

Some time back I seem to recall that Ramona answered a similar question of icons but no names in an address book. I haven't been able to find those posts and am not sure of the results. If you or anyone can clarify the proper procedure, I would be most appreciative. Thank you for your interest.

 

derfsch,

In Thunderbird are you clicking on: Tools | Import and then pointing to the *.ldif file?

Thunderbird will then import the LDIF file, but it will not be included in the Personal Address Book. However, what you can do, is:

Open the LDIF file, and press CTRL+A
This will highlight all the addresses
Left click and drag the highlighted addresses to the Personal Address Book

Wait at least a day to see that all is working as it should, and then you can delete the LDIF Address Book.

 

Ramona,

Your suggestion didn't work for me. Let's not spend any more time of this situation. I have all the information needed to generate new cards and there are not so many addresses that it will take much more time. Thank you for your interest.