The Ultimate Solution: Syncing Gmail Contacts with Thunderbird Address Book Made Simple

Updated On - December 20, 2023 by Nasir Khan | Reading Time: 5 minutes

Emails have now become the primary way for businesses to communicate and collaborate. If you use Thunderbird or another old-school email client with your Gmail account, this tutorial can help you gain access to your Gmail contacts. The trick is to create a shortcut that synchronizes your Gmail contacts with your old-school address book. Never again will you have to type your Gmail email address into your old email program. In this write-up, I’ll mention the steps to synchronize Gmail contacts with Thunderbird Address book and vice versa.

How to Synchronize Gmail contacts with Thunderbird Address Book

Manually there are three possible ways by using which you can synchronize your Gmail contacts with the Thunderbird address book. Below I’ve mentioned all three ways you can go with anyone.

 Method1: Export Gmail contacts to Thunderbird Address book manually

• Firstly, log in to your Gmail account from where you want to move contacts.
• Now, click the Google apps icon and the Contacts option.
• The Contacts list will now open in the following window; select the Contacts you want to export.
• Next, click the icon “More actions” and “Export.”
• Save as an Outlook CSV file, and the resultant .csv file will automatically be downloaded to your downloads folder.
• Now, open Thunderbird and click on the Menu tab > Tools > Import.
• In the following wizard, choose Address Books and then click Next.
• Next, select “Text File” from the list and click “Next.”
• Choose the address book you just downloaded and click “Next.”
• Choose the right options for each contact, then click Next. Once done, tap, OK.
• At last, go to the Address Book tab and see if the contact was imported successfully.

Method2: Sync Gmail Contacts with Thunderbird Using a ‘gContactSync’ Extension

Users can sync their Gmail contacts with their Thunderbird Address book with the help of an Add-on called “gContactSync.” Here’s how to add this extension to your Thunderbird program.

1. Start up your Thunderbird program.
2. Click on the three bars in the upper right corner, then expand the Add-ons option from the list and click on it.
3. The “Add-ons Manager” tab will open in a new tab. Search “gContactSync,” and “Install it to your app.
4. Once done with installing the add-in, restart your Thunderbird app.
5. Next, in the contact sync wizard, choose to Use a new account and enter the Gmail email address of your Gmail account.
6. Provide your Gmail credentials, i.e., email address and password, and click “Next.”
7. Click the “Allow” button to keep going.
8. At last, click on the Finish button.
9. A final message of warning will be shown. Check it and press the OK button.

Related Post: Export Gmail Mailbox to Outlook PST File

Method3: Synchronize Gmail Contacts with Thunderbird using the Google Contacts extension

Thunderbird is an open source and free email client and is getting more and more popular these days. Also, another extension called “Google Contacts” can be used to synchronize Gmail contacts with Thunderbird address book.

• To install the extension, you can follow the same steps as in the first method, except you will search for “Google Contacts” instead of “gContactSync.”
• After adding the extension, you’ll need to start your browser again. It will ask for some information, such as your Gmail account, email address, and a request to access your Google contacts.
• Then, for each of the Google accounts, it will make a new address book called “Google account name.”
• You can now change the address book’s name to whatever you like. When you start Thunderbird, the extension will automatically sync your Google contacts.

Remember that if you delete the address book from the Thunderbird browser, all of the contacts in the address book will no longer be synchronized.

Related Blog: Export MS Excel Spreadsheet Data to Outlook Address Book?

Manually syncing Gmail contacts with Thunderbird Address books is possible, but as you can see, the processes are lengthy and take a long time. Also, there are a few drawbacks to these manual methods.

• You can only sync contacts at a time, and you have to do something else to sync emails.
• There are chances that your process gets interrupted, and all your Gmail contacts can get deleted.
• You’ve to repeat the process, again and again, to move contacts from multiple Gmail accounts.
• Last, the processes are lengthy and complicated and could lead to data loss or synchronization that isn’t complete.

 Professional solution to synchronize Gmail contacts with Thunderbird

The manual solution works but is not reliable to import Gmail contacts from multiple accounts as you’ve to repeat the same process repeatedly.

Several professionals and businesspersons prefer Regain Gmail backup tool. The tool is an effective and renowned solution to move Gmail contacts to the Thunderbird address book. The tool allows you to backup Gmail contacts into MBOX format, and you can import these MBOX files into your Thunderbird account easily. Apart from Gmail contacts, you can move all your Gmail data to the Thunderbird email client if required.

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Synchronize Google contacts to Thunderbird address book

1. Install and open the automated Regain Gmail Backup tool in your system.
2. Now, enter your Gmail account credentials.
3. Following, select the Contact folder from the left pane.
4. Next, choose MBOX as a backup option and click Next.

Once you’ve moved your Gmail contact folder to MBOX format, you can import the MBOX files to your Thunderbird account. The tool is convenient and can accomplish the task within a few minutes.

Conclusion

We hope you enjoyed this post about how to synchronize Gmail contacts with Thunderbird Address Book. We know that having a good address book is important for staying organized and in touch. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact us anytime.

Frequently Asked Questions

Ques1. How do I sync my Thunderbird address book with Google contacts?
Ans. Users can easily sync their contacts from Thunderbird address book with Google contacts by simply copying and pasting them to the storage where they want to save.

Ques2. Where is contacts sync in Gmail?
Ans. To manage your Google contacts sync, follow these steps: Go to Settings > Google > Account Services > Contacts Sync > Automatically sync Google Contacts. Turn the toggle on/off.

Ques3. Why my Gmail contacts are not syncing?
Ans. There can be many reasons behind this. In order to make this happen, users can easily check contacts synchronization settings and solve this problem.

Ques4. What is auto-sync in Gmail?
Ans. This feature allows the users to get constant notifications on a real-time basis about new emails and delivery. This makes it easy to track the latest updates.