Lost my Thunderbird email CONTACTS

[Nisko555]

I just completed a Clean Install of Windows 10 because my last Windows 10 install became corrupt. In so doing, I lost all my personal email contacts (email only) in Thunderbird. Would someone please tell me how to retrieve them for GMAIL? Thank you.

[DanRaisch]

Please confirm your terminology. When you say "I lost all my personal email contacts (email only) in Thunderbird" are you referring to the email messages or to the address books which store names, email addresses, and other data relating to you contacts.

If the latter, Thunderbird stores your address books (email contact data) on the local hard drive. Unless you have been using an extension or some sort of synchronization service to add that data to your Gmail address book, you may not be able to recover the information.

When you did the new install of Win 10, did you choose options to save user data from the existing Windows installation? If so, you could search the hard drive for files with the extension .mab. Those would contain your contact data.

[Nisko555]

The new installation of Thunderbird recovered all my email messages - but did NOT recover my email contacts (address books). Since this is a Clean Install, I can't search my drive. Can I retrieve my address books from the online version of gmail? Thank you.

[DanRaisch]

GMail does not normally use or connect with contact data from Thunderbird. Wereyou have using an extension or some sort of synchronization service to add that data to your Gmail address book?

[Nisko555]

Well, when I performed the Clean Install, I began to use the default mail app - and it knows my Address Book from Gmail (at least, some of the Address Book). Strange that I can't get Thunderbird to recognize it. Also, I can't find a way to export my Gmail Address Book from the default mail program. There must be a way to recover my Google Mail contact list!!!

[DanRaisch]

OK, now you have me confused. Gmail contacts would be on the Gmail server and not on the local drive and not stored in Thunderbird so replacing Thunderbird or even reinstalling Windows would not touch your contact data on the Google server.

Try going to https://contacts.google.com/u/0/?cplus%3D0=#contacts There you will find options to export your contact. If you export them to CSV format, Thunderbird can import the file created and you will have your "Gmail contact list" in Thunderbird.

[Nisko555]

OK, I went to that site. It has all my contacts - but not my Address Book contacts for Gmail. My Gmail contacts is just a small subset of my Google contacts - of which I have over 600. I probably have about 25 Address Book contacts. I'm surprised that, when I imported my Google Gmail messages, it didn't also recover my Address Book. If I'm still being confusing, please tell me. Thank you.

[DanRaisch]

We seem to have terminology problem here, so let me make sure I'm clear.

You seem to be referring to a number of contacts stored in the Thunderbird address book that are related to your use of that Gmail account. Is that correct?
Your Gmail account was (is?:) set up in Thunderbird as an IMAP type account. Is that correct? Find out using menu path Tools->Account Settings->Server Settings->Server Type at the top right of the dialogue.

If both responses are "Yes:, the contact data you saw in Thunderbird, as I mentioned above, was stored on the local computer but the messages were and are stored on Google's server. As a result, when you did a reinstall of Windows the Gmail contact data in Thunderbird was lost because it was on the local drive but the messages, stored on the server, were retained.

[Nisko555]

All correct - except I am set up as a pop3 account. I don't know if all my Google Contacts have email addresses in them. If they did, I could go through them and pick out the ones I want in my Address Book.

[DanRaisch]

That doesn't change the loss of the "Gmail contacts". It seems to indicate that the account in the original Thunderbird set up was either an IMAP account or a POP account with the option set to leave messages on the server. When you reinstalled Thunderbird and set up the account again, it downloaded all of the messages which had been left on the server. But the contact records that you refer to as "personal email contacts (email only) in Thunderbird" were stored only on the local system and were deleted when Windows was reinstalled.

[Nisko555]

That's quite unfortunate for me. I had multiple backups on multiple drives using Macrium Reflect. However, restoring images using Macrium didn't work. I suspect Macrium Reflect is at fault. I realize that sounds outragious - but I'm close to proving it. Guess I'll just have to (slowly) reconstruct my Address Book. Thanks for the help!

[DanRaisch]

Your welcome. I'm sorry the result was not more favorable.

[Nisko555]

Thought I would mention this to you for the future: My Gmail address book is on my Smartphone - so, I can retrieve my contacts from there. I will have to go by the alphabet, A-Z (one letter at a time) but it's better than starting from scratch. If you can think of a better, more efficient, way to retrieve my address book contacts, plese let me know.

[DanRaisch]

Again, I think this is a terminology problem. Have you confirmed that the "Gmail contacts" visible to you on your phone are not the same set of contacts present when you access that Gmail account through a browser on your computer?

[Nisko555]

I can't seem to be able to access my contacts (address book) on Gmail online. How do I access my address book on Gmail online? The Google Contacts I can access are ALL of my contacts - not the subset which are in my address book in Thunderbird. I'm pretty sure online Gmail doesn't recognise my Thunderbird address book.

Oops!! Now, in my frustration, I accidentally archived many of my inbox emails (Gmail online). How do I un-archive them?

Also, I still con't find my contact list through Gmail online. Can you tell me how to find it please?