Thunderbird Contact Handling Method

[Jonathan]

I'm new to Thunderbird contact handling but still need to take care of a
business sized list of contacts.

Can anyone give me a thumbnail version of how to work with thunderbird
contacts? I've read the help but would like a kind of walk through on
this. Any white papers or help documents that are available would be
helpful as well.

One thing I want to do is to add all my incoming and outgoing email to
the contact list and then sort through them manually to remove anything
unnecessary.

Additionally, I currently have my emails sorted by type and would like
to do the same with the contacts.

- Jonathan

[Spiderman]

Jonathan schrieb:

Hi,
to collect the mail addresses go to:
-> extras -> settings -> click on third icon from left -> click under
this icon the menu in the middle. Then on the bottom of the window is a
menu point to add the mail addresses.

[Spiderman]

Jonathan schrieb:

I don't see any chance to sort the contacts. But you can create new
address books like "work", "friends", etc.
-> file -> new -> address book

[Bernie]

Thunderbird can automatically add the contacts for your Outgoing mail.
(Given the amount of spam that flows you probably don't want to
automatically add incoming addresses anyway.)

I believe that collecting/adding the outgoing e-mail addresses is the
default, but to check, go to Tools > Options > Composition > Addressing
and be sure the box is checked to collect addresses.

You can add organization and a great deal of other information to the
address book entires for each contact. Double-click on anyone in the
address book to see. You can sort the address book any of those fields
by clicking on the column heading. Clicking a second time inverts the
sort sequence.

There is a funny looking icon in the upper right corner of the address
book window, sort of like a sideways E (really supposed to look like a
two column table). Clicking that icon will allow you to control which
columns are displayed when you open the address book.

You can use the Search field in the address book to locate anyone in
your address book based on name or e-mail address. Just type the first
few characters and the address book will start narrowing down the list.

Bernie

[gNeandr]

Am 24.09.2007 16:20 »Jonathan« wrote

You should install this TB/AB extension:
http://nic-nac-project.de/~kaosmos/morecols-en.html
It gives you some nice additional features with TB/AB. You can use a
hidden item, the "Category". That will be available on a separte tab for
the address card, as well as a additional column in the list (use the
column configurator at the very right side of the list).

And if you add/modify this pref

mail.addr_book.quicksearchquery.format
with
?(or(PrimaryEmail,c,@V)(DisplayName,c,@V)(FirstName,c,@V)(LastName,c,@V)(Category,c,@V)(Custom4,c,@V))

you are also able to reduce the contact list to those holding the
entered Category!
Günter

[Spiderman]

gNeandr schrieb:

That's nice. Thanks. I need it also.

[Poddys]

As already stated you can create multiple Address Books. I find that
the easiest way to group various contacts.

I also use address books in conjunction with Filters (Rules). One of
the options when creating a filter is to identify messages based on
the senders address. As well as creating a long list of addresses in
each filter, which is tedious to maintain, you can also filter
messages if the sender is in a specific Address Book. I create new
address books specifically to deal with these rules, they might be for
online stores, message boards etc, and not addresses that I would
normally write to, but all I have to do to include more messages in a
specific filter is right click on the senders address for a message
that is not filtered and add it to the address book for that filter.
Then I just run the filter again to make sure the message(s) get
moved.

Hope this helps.