DELETED ADDRESS BOOK

[DanRaisch]

Just to be sure, did you rename the file history.mab to collected.mab and the file abook.mab to history.mab?

[wwe]

Just to be sure, did you rename the file history.mab to collected.mab and the file abook.mab to history.mab?

Dan,

Yes I did. I can do it again to be sure if you think that might help!! But let me ask you this - by doing what you said how will this bring back the address book I titled AUTOMATIC CUSTOMERS with all the addresses on it?

Thanks.

[DanRaisch]

It won't as I was not aware that you were referring to a user created address book rather than one of the two default address books created by Thunderbird during installation.

Of course with the Mac I have TIME MACHINE which is great but that doesn't help me with anything relating to SEAMONKEY

Why do you say that?

How many files with the extension .mab are in your Thunderbird profile and what are there names?.

[wwe]

Oh sorry Dan for not explaining this better!!

I went to Library / Mozilla / Profiles / 4w6sv9pk.default / extensions

If that's correct then I'm not sure where to go. I see many book - ?.mab I could click on but is that where you want me to go?

There is something called "extensions" but clicking on this doesn't look like what you mean

I can't seem to find "extension.mab"

[DanRaisch]

The ".mab" I referred to is the file name extension (sort of a last name or surname) for all of the files in which SeaMonkey stores address book data. So we're not looking for a file named extension.mab. (See this link for clarity on what extension means in this context-- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filename_extension )

How many files with the extension {lastname/suffix} .mab are in your Thunderbird profile and what are there names?.

[Anonymosity]

The pathname to my address book is:
~/Library/Application Support/SeaMonkey/Profiles/[whatever].default/abook.mab.
If you made a backup of everything, that is where you should be looking.

[wwe]

Thanks Dan. I'll look for this tonight! I think I did see many abook.mab's but I'll check later

[DanRaisch]

Doesn’t Time Machine let you select previous versions of files to recover/restore?

[wwe]

Dan

Right now if I go to:

~/Library/Application Support/SeaMonkey/Profiles/[whatever].default/abook.mab.

I show abook.mab October 3, 2018 at 2:30PM 1KB Bbedit

This doesn't seem right to me, is it? Only 1KB

Should I look somewhere else?

Thanks

[DanRaisch]

No, that's the correct location but that result suggests that you have an empty address book there.
Did you review what can be restored from Time Machine?

[wwe]

YEs I used GIME MACHINE and went back 3 weeks but it showed the same thing as I mentioned about.

My other ADDRESS BOOKS are fine but shouldn't they also be under the abook.mab folder?

[DanRaisch]

shouldn't they also be under the abook.mab folder?

abook.mab is not a folder, it's a file name. Other address books would have different file name but would be in the same ~/Library/Application Support/SeaMonkey/Profiles/[whatever].default/ folder/sub-directory as that file abook.mab. Their names would also end with .mab but might have names like abook-1.mab, abook-2.mab or the like.

[wwe]

Dan. I just found a batch of a abook.mab's (2-27 but 26 is missing) I thought if I went back using TIME MACHINE maybe book.mab-26 would be the one I'm missing but I went back weeks ago when the missing address book was there and i saw no abook.mab-26. But maybe this is not what I should have done

SO any ideas now?

[amrad]

@ wwe,

If you can find an abook-**.mab that you are /certain/ contains your missing abook.mab, then I would suggest doing this, with SeaMonkey completely closed:

1. Make a backup of your existing abook.mab, rename it abook-current.mab.
2. Open your abook-current.mab in a text editor.
3. Open the abook-**.mab you found that contains your missing address book in a text editor.
4. Replace the contents of the abook-current.mab with the contents of abook-**.mab.
5. Save the abook.**mab as abook.mab.

When you restart SeaMonkey, you should find your missing address book in the Personal Address Book in SeaMonkey.

Regards,

Dave.

[wwe]

Dave. Thanks. I'll try this