Moving Address List from Imported to Personal Address Book

I recently upgraded from Mozilla Mail to Thunderbird. After exporting my addresses from MM to an LDIF, I imported them into TB. It looks fine and all of the collected lists are retained in the imported book.

I want transfer all of the address and the lists to the Personal Address Book but when I Select All and move the entire book into PAB, the lists come over as an Address Card not a List. What am I missing?

Of course TB will not let me create a new list in PAB with the same name as the one in my imported one. Sigh.

BTW, great site!

Richard

 

It does not matter which name you have for the ABs, but if you want to place them in the Personal AB, which drag and drop the address.
I, actually, do the reverse, dragging addresses out of the Personal AB into more specialized ABs. Drag and drop does not remove the address, it just copies it.
Since the Personal AB gets pretty unmanageable, I delete the address which I have copied elsewhere.

 

FWIW.
in:
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-GB; rv:1.8.1.3) Gecko/20070326 Thunderbird/2.0.0.0 ID:2007032620
when Drag&Drop (D&D) from one book to another using Left Mouse Button (LMB) the selected address is
is MOVED to the other AB - i.e. copied and then display is is suppressed in original book
Please note the size of the original .MAB file, it actually increases though it shows fewer entries. This holds true for any entries "deleted" from an abook.
Just the display is suppressed. There is no way that I have found to "compact" an .mab file without jumping through a lot of hoops.
Also note the Mouse pointer as you select the destination book - it shows the arrow pointer and a small box.

If you select the original address D&D with LMB and Hold down the "crtl" key when you release the LMB you will note the mouse pointer will change to a small box AND a [+] and the original entry is not suppessed. i.e. it is just copied.

Just another of the strange things with the "Mork" database.

Just my observations.

regards:captjlddavis

 

I had never used D&D with TB2.0. It is, actually, worse than I thought. I can move addresses to another AB, where there are identical copies of the same address, and it goes in that way. Very primitive!
My favorite with TB2.0 has nothing to do with the AB, or may be it does. I have the Get Mail extention in my default Firefox2.0.0.3, and have, also, TB1.5.0.10 as well as 2.0.0.0 (my default), installed in different folders, and using different profiles. If I use the desktop shortcut it will open the correct version, but if I use Get Mail, it will open 2.0 with the 1.5.0.10 profile. So, I may have moved the wrong addresses.

 

Welcome to the Forum, ARES1136!

Richard,

You can copy the addresses in the LDIF file to the Address Book.

Do this:

Highlight the LDIF file, and press: CTRL+A

Left click the mouse and drag the highlight addresses to the Address Book. That should be all that is necessary.

 

More on Address Books, Cards, and Lists

All of these responses have been helpful. But my TB 1.5.0.10 is not working that way. Using LMB D&D with or without the + Ctrl key makes a copy of the addressee's CARD and leaves the original card displayed. I know that is not the way it is suppose to work but that is what is happening to me. Your experience must be different.

My real issue, and this seems to have been missed, is that I have LISTs within my imported address book that are collections of addressee cards. When I highlight and D&D a LIST, it ends up in the new BOOK as a CARD not as a LIST. I have emphasized the terminology here to try to clarify my dilemma.

But Westside has an interesting suggestion of doing the reverse and that may be my final solution. Hey, why not just keep the original imported book and use that where the LISTs are already set up?

I thought I was being efficient by trying to have only one address book with multiple lists in it and save the anguish of trying to restore multiple books, histories, imports, and collections when upgrading or restoring after a crash.

Richard

 

ARES1136,
In your post you said you recently upgraded to TB from Mozilla - I wrongfully assumed that you were speaking of TB 2.0.0.0 - TB 1.5.0.10 may be different, I don't know for sure.
At any rate, LISTS are just pointers to addresses in a parent address book.
You are correct, you can not create a list with the same name as a existing list. (thats a new one to me, but I had never tried it before )

When you say

What exactly are you D&D (left panel or Right Panel)

Personally I think the best approach is as suggested by Westside "use separate BOOKS" Lists are nice in theory but very convoluted.

I don't think this helps much, ..... I don't use lists.
If you are set in trying to do this, let us know and perhaps we can come up with something.

regards:captjlddavis