TB Only Export Selected Addressbook Fields?

[seannhenderson]

Hi TB-ers,

Is there a dialog or screen somewhere in Thunderbird where only selected Addressbook fields can be exported?

For instance, I would like to exclude the Notes field since the carriage returns are not substituted in .tab and .csv exports.

If no, is there a Thunderbird Addon-or-Extension that can accomplish this?

I already did a search in this Forum using a combination of these keywords and did not find:

• Export
• Addressbook
• Selected Fields

I tried searching Addons from within Thunderbird using a combination of these keywords and did not find anything:

• Addressbook
• Export
• Contacts

I had thought that ThunderSync might do it, but no.

Thanks in advance for any help.

[DanRaisch]

There is no functionality or extension to export selected fields of the address book. It's a simple matter, however, to export the entire set of data as a CSV format file and then edit that in a spreadsheet program like Excel, deleting the columns that are not required for the current purpose and then saving the edited file back to CSV format.

[seannhenderson]

@DanRaisch - No it is not, which is why I need the selected fields. There is extra CR/LF and TAB data in the export in various fields moving the positioning around. I'm not about to hand-edit all the records for that. I'd sooner edit a pine addressbook than attempt that. I need a screen between the Export... and Save As... dialog to choose what fields to export.

[DanRaisch]

...and nothing like that is available, at least as far as I can tell.

In what environment are you seeing the extra CR/LF and TAB issues? I haven't had problems with that in the files I've exported to spreadsheets.

[seannhenderson]

Windows 7 32-bit, MSO 2010, McAfree Saas, Thunderbird Portable 31.1.2. The issue is I have thousands of contacts with verbose entries in all the custom fields and note fields and many of the other fields. It's really the unescaped CR/LFs.

I think the Export... feature needs to be reworked in general. It's kind of sad, actually.

And, while we're at it, can we get a timestamp for when the record was created?

[DanRaisch]

Not likely to see big changes in the Address Book functionality for some time. Mozilla is only providing support for security updates and bug fixes while any development work is being addressed by volunteers and there has not been much action in regard to the address book from that quarter.

You might review the extension https://nic-nac-project.org/~kaosmos/morecols-en.html which, if I remember correctly, adds a "Date added" field among enhancements.

[morat]

exclude the Notes field

If I couldn't use Dan's trick, then I would...

* export an address book as abook1.ldif
* remove the "description:" lines with a programming editor
* import the abook1.ldif file
* export the abook1 address book as abook2.csv
* delete the abook1 address book

Notes fields with a newline character are stored as base64 strings in the LDIF file.

Content Record Format
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LDAP_Data_ ... ord_Format

remove the "description:" lines with a programming editor

Remove "description:" lines using Notepad++

* open Replace dialog with Ctrl+H shortcut
* type ^description:.*\r\n in Find what field
* do not type anything in Replace with field
* select Regular expression in Search Mode section
* click Replace All button

Remove blank lines using Notepad++
http://8thstring.blogspot.com/2012/12/r ... tepad.html

[tanstaafl]

You could also try using a utility such as Dawn to convert the address book to another format, and then back to the original format. That might lose anything non-standard. See http://kb.mozillazine.org/Mail_Utilities#Dawn