Sharing address booksFrom MozillaZine Knowledge Base
[edit] Copy the address bookOne way to share address books is to store the user profiles on a file share and overwrite the addressbooks of each user with a simple "copy" command. However, this assumes all new entries or changes were in the copy thats being replicated. Its also error prone. You could avoid this by sharing a single copy. The SyncMab extension is a usefull way to automate copying address books. You can configure it to sync one or more address books whenever you start and/or exit Thunderbird. However, there are reports it doesn't work correctly with 1.5 and 1.5.0.4 and there doesn't appear to be any way to contact the author except by email. The Addressbooks Synchronizer extension can copy address books from a local folder or file share, or use FTP , WebDAV, or IMAP to fetch the file. [edit] Share an address book on a file shareYour personal address book is normally stored as a "abook.mab" file within the profile folder. This is specified in the prefs.js file: user_pref("ldap_2.servers.pab.filename", "abook.mab");
Early versions of Thunderbird let you replace the "abook.mab" filename with a full pathname to specify the address book was stored on a file share. That would let multiple users and/or machines use a single copy. However, that functionality no longer works and there is no indication that it will ever be restored. You can replace the filename to specify a relative pathname. For example: user_pref("ldap_2.servers.pab.filename", "test\\abook.mab");
specifies that abook.mab is stored in a "test" subdirectory in my profile. So you could store it in any subdirectory below the profile. You can do the same thing with other address books. But it's not very useful. If you're using Linux you could move a address book to another location (such as a file share) and then use a symlink to create a symbolic link to the file. As far as Thunderbird is concerned nothing has changed, the operating system hides the fact that the file is actually stored elsewhere. That works as long as you don't have a copy of the address book in the profile. The NTFS file system under Windows 2000 and XP supports an equivalent of a symlink called a junction point. It works fine with Thunderbird, but may be too complex for most users. [edit] PlaxoPlaxo has a Thunderbird toolbar (an extension) that can synchronize a single address book with your Plaxo address book. There are similar toolbars for Outlook and Outlook Express though they map more fields. [edit] Email provider specific add-onThere are a couple of email provider specific add-ons that synchronize Thunderbird's address book with your webmail address book. The Zindus Thunderbird contact sync with Google add-on is an example of this. Search Mozilla Add-ons (AMO) and/or the Add-ons Mirror (its a superset of AMO) to find others. [edit] LDAPRather than using abook.mab to store the address book on your hard disk, you could use a LDAP server to share the address book. Unfortunately Thunderbird currently doesn't support editing entries on the LDAP server (this is bug 86405) so its most useful in an environment where an admin maintains a corporate address book. [edit] Sogo ConnectorThe SoGo Connector extension adds support for remote DAV address books, and features that are meant to be used with the Lightning extension (a calendar). It supports GroupDAV and CardDAV. [edit] GCALDaemon: GMail contacts as pseudo-LDAPThis article describes how to autocomplete email addresses that you type when composing a message with email addresses from your Gmail address book, without having to keep your Thunderbird address book in synch with the Gmail address book. GCALDaemon has a built-in LDAP server that runs in the background to search your Gmail address book for addresses. It only supports autocompletion, you can't use it to access other other contact information or to modify any of the entries. [edit] Virtual ApplianceThis article describes how to share address books by running a Miru directory server in a VMware player on one PC. Its basicly a preconfigured combination of a LDAP server with a web server to let you both add and update the address book entries, that runs as a virtual appliance. You can also add entries within Thunderbird (using the miru directory server extension). This forum thread has more information about the extension and some configuration issues. [edit] IMAP specificIf you have a IMAP account you might experiment with the SyncKolab extension. It loads all your contacts (from a selected address book) as well as events and todos (from the selected calendar), and synchronizes them with a selected IMAP folder. The main restriction is that you must have a calendar. If you wanted to share the address book with other users you could use a public folder. IMAP supports the concept of public folders, though not every e-mail provider supports them. It's not clear yet how well SyncKolab works (at this time). [edit] Share the OSX System's Address BookThunderbird 3.0 is supposed to be able to read from the OSX System address book. See this bug report and this forum thread for more information, including a download link for a modified version of Thunderbird 2.0.0.6. [edit] See also[edit] External links
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