The alternative is to manual import the data. This article will describe a way to manually import Gmail Contacts information into the Mozilla Thunderbird email client.

Thunderbird users who want to automatically sync Gmail contacts instead can follow the link above.

Manual importing and exporting contacts is usually done with csv (comma separated values) files.

Import Gmail Contacts Into Thunderbird

Open the Gmail website and click on the contacts link in the left sidebar. This should open the Gmail Contacts window that lists all contacts and groups in the email client.

Locate the Export link at the top right of the screen and click it.

You can now export all contacts or only specific groups of contacts which is handy if contacts have been sorted into custom groups. Select Export as Outlook CSV which ensures the best compatibility for importing operations.

A click on the Export button in the menu will open a Save File dialog to save the contacts.csv file to the local computer system.

Now that we have the Gmail contacts information we need to import them into the Thunderbird email client. Open Thunderbird and click on Tools > Address Book or press Ctrl-Shift-B.

Locate the Tools menu again in the Address Book of Thunderbird and select the Import link there.

Make sure you select Address Books before continuing. Now select Text File (LDIF, .tab, .csv, .txt) from the next screen as we have exported the Gmail contacts into a csv text file.

A file browser opens. Browse to the Gmail contacts file that you have exported earlier. You might need to change the filtering type in the file browser so that all files and not only LDIF files are shown.

The import address book window opens afterwards. You can use this window to check that the exported contact information match with the information in Thunderbird. It is possible to go through all contacts and switch information if necessary. You should make sure that primary email and e-mail address as well as last name and name match in this window before continuing.

A click on the OK button imports the Gmail contact information into a new Thunderbird address book.

Photos are automatically taken from the Thunderbird address book if available with the option to display a generic avatar image or nothing at all if no photo is available or if the sender is not listed in the address book yet.

Thunderbird users have the option to pick a generic photo, a photo on the computer or a photo on the web for each contact of their address book. That is a default feature that the extension makes use of.

The extension places the photo into the email header of the currently active mail in Thunderbird.

A double-click on the photo leads right to the photo tab of the address book if the contact is already listed in it. If not, the sender needs to be listed first before the photo can be edited or added.

It may take some time to add photos to all or the most important contacts of the Thunderbird address book. It may however be worth it as it can really speed up identification when reading emails in the desktop email client.

The extension comes with several options that can be used to set a maximum size of a photo in pixels, the position of the photo and the behavior if there is no photo.

Other options include support for local photos (by using the email address as the name of the photo), domain wildcard photos, visual effects and a button to clear the thumbnail cache.

Display Contact Photo is only available for Thunderbird 3. It can be downloaded from the Mozilla Thunderbird add-on repository. The extension is updated regularly.

The address book software will automatically recognize possible duplicate contact information and display a dialog to the user that proposes a few ways how to deal with the data including options to skip or edit.

Important features offered by Open Contacts include:

• Unlimited data fields to store any contact info. Along with predefined fields, you may add unlimited data fields grouped by section.
• Manage relationships between individuals, organizations and departments.
• Comprehensive Categories. You may click on a category to view contacts of the category, or right click to list contacts of subcategories recursively.
• Search through any data field, and search birthday of people.
• Interact with Windows applications of telephony, Skype, emailing or Web/File browsing etc.
• Map service with Google Maps. You may use either single line address or multi-line address. Yahoo Maps and Microsoft Live Maps are also supported through custom action plug-in programs.
• Print contact info and labels on papers of different sizes.
• Import from MS Outlook, Outlook Express (WAB), Eudora, Netscape/Mozilla Thunderbird, XML (xCard), CSV, LDIF, Vista and vCard.
• Export to indented text, CSV, Excel, vCard, XML (xCard), HTML, hCard and XFN (XHTML Friends Network).
• Portable. You may bring your address book database and the program in an external device such as a USB flash disk, and run the program on any Windows PC.
• LAN supports for multiple users in Local Area Network, using true Client/Server architecture.

Quite a few can be very interesting for users in specific work situations. The only real downside to this excellent address book software program is the rather outdated user interface that feels slow in certain situations. Open Contacts is available as a free download from the developer’s homepage.

The Email Address Crawler add-on for Thunderbird does that. You can point it at any mail folder in Thunderbird and import the contact information into any address book automatically. The add-on comes with a few filters to make the automatic import more reliable. It is possible to specify if mails should be imported from the To, From or CC fields and if there should be a minimum amount of emails from a person before they are imported.

The add-on will automatically select the most complete email if different versions are available meaning that it will prefer Full Name email@address.org over email@address.org

The add-on provides an excellent way of creating new mailing lists by importing contact information automatically into address books.