Re: [Evolution] How to import address book from Thunderbird?

[Dinbandhu <dinbandhu sprynet com>]

On Fri, 2007-09-07 at 09:27 +0100, Pete Biggs wrote:
> On Thu, 2007-09-06 at 23:58 -0400, Dinbandhu wrote:
> > On Sun, 2007-08-26 at 23:50 -0600, Sankar P wrote:
> > > On Fri, 2007-08-24 at 16:17 -0400, Dinbandhu wrote:
> > > > I am running Feisty and want to import my address book from Thunderbird
> > > > into Evolution. Both applications are running in Feisty itself. Can
> > > > someone tell me how to do it? 
> > >
> > > Thunderbird. Addressbook.
> > >
> > > Tools->Export-> LDIF or CSV
> > >
> > > Evolution. File->Import doesn't work ?
> >
> > Thank you. I just now saw your reply here. Yes, someone else also
> > suggested this to me on the Ubuntu Support Forum. I tried it, and it
> > worked-- to a certain extent. That is to say, it did bring in all the
> > addresses. But the main problem is, that it did not retain the way in
> > which the addresses were organized. There are a large number of
> > addresses, but they are kept in six different mailing lists. And now all
> > the addresses are just listed singly in the Evolution address book.
> > Which is not much help to me, as I need the mailing lists. It would be a
> > massive job to reorganize all those addresses by hand into their
> > respective mailing lists. If it were to be like that, I could have just
> > manually pasted each address into the Evolution address book myself and
> > it would have taken just as look. There must be a way to do the import
> > in such a way that the mailing lists are maintained. 
> >
> > I did the import using csv. Do you think it would be any better if I did
> > it via LDIF? Or will I still face the same problem?
>
> Probably.
>
> Evo is doing as you requested: importing the addresses into your
> addressbook.  There is no information in either csv or ldif about
> mailing lists - or contact lists as Evolution calls them.
>
> How about this as a workaround - export each of your mailling lists from
> Thunderbird as a separate file, then import them into Evo each as a
> separate Addressbook.  Now within Evo create all your Contact Lists and
> drag and drop addresses from the individual addressbooks into each list
> - that should be easy because each time you want an entire addressbook,
> so you just highlight everything.
>
> So you are maintaining the structure by using different files, and
> maintaining the structure means that it's easy to create the contact
> lists.

That is perfect! It should do the job, great idea.

Now, I do not know how technically to do it though. Can you give me some
guidance as to how to:

(1) Export each of my mailing lists from Thunderbird as a separate file?

When I open Thunderbird and open the address book, and go to its tools
-> Export window, there seems to be only the option to export the entire
address book. 

Perhaps the way to do it would be to create a separate address book for
each mailing list? And then export the address book? If that is the way
to do it, then I need to find out how to create another address book and
copy and paste the mailing list to it. If this is the proper approach
and you know how, then kindly guide me.

(2) When I do the import into Evo, I should import each list as a
separate address book. How do I do that?

Here are the instructions I know for doing an import of addresses:

In Evolution,
* Go to Contacts Window View
* Click File --> Import
* Go ahead and select "import a single file" option when asked
* Select the file we created when exporting from Thunderbird
* Then import the contacts

So, where in this sequence do I select that I want the addresses to go
into a separate address book?

Many thanks,
Swarup