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Thunderbird: How does one fix addressbook?


crp

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using Thunderbird 1.5, when trying to open the addressbook now it complains that the file is corrupted. How can I retrieve the information that is still in decent shape? I see no recovery utilities for doing this, but if someone knows the layout of the file I can dig in and get the data.

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V.T. Eric Layton

I believe you can find the T-bird address book in the Application Data section in Documents and Setting on your main drive. The address book will be "abook.mab" or possibly a numbered variation of that: "abook3.mab". Either way, you can attempt to open that file with a text editor application, like Note Pad. You may be able to save some date from it that way. Recovery of the data won't be easy. You'll probably have to go through and manually copy the names and email addresses.In the future, it's a simple thing to back up your T-bird. Just copy the entire Profile folder onto a CD or other external media. That will save you a lot of heartache down the road.Luck!~Eric

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A very comprehensive guide can be found below...Your situation is in the Search an Rescue heading about 1/2 way down.Here Ya Go...
B) did not see the situation addressed there.Anyway, :w00t:
    1. i opened the address book in wordpad
    2. took a very intelligent 'guess' on where the real data ended
    3. deleted the rest of the file
    4. saved it as the new address book file
    5. restarted Thunderbird

I must say that having taken a look at the header definitions of the address book, :thumbsup: I am very disappointed. What a mess.

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