Thunderbird

I'm using Thunderbird and I have 3 computers.  It's a pain having to add a contact to all three address books.

Does anyone know how to change the default path of where the address book is stored, so I can point the path to my dropbox account, this way, I can do this on all three computers and I only have one address book?
DanNetwork EngineerAsked:
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ElrondCTCommented:
You can use an LDAP Directory server. This requires setting up some software on a server (web, or on your internal network), then loading the addresses. I'm sorry that I don't know of a way to simply move the address books to a new, shared location.

A good description of how to set up an LDAP server is at: http://www.sudleyplace.com/LDAP/index.en.html
rindiCommented:
For gmail you can use the thunderbird addon "gContactSync". For other mail providers, you should have similar addons that work for them.
DanNetwork EngineerAuthor Commented:
Well, I found a way to move the entire profile folder folder over to dropbox, but that includes all my emails and everything else, which I don't link because it's slower then running directly on my HD.
Also, it takes up more space or valuable space from my dropbox account, because I have the free account.
What I did is copy the profile folder to dropbox and then in the run box I ran: C:\Program Files (x86)\Mozilla Thunderbird\thunderbird.exe -profilemanager
Then just created a new profile and selected the location where I had moved my files to.
Then just told it to use this new profile as the default profile.

This actually works, but I don't want everything to run from dropbox, just my address book.

Does anyone else know how to just move the address book to a different location than the default location?
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rindiCommented:
As I already mentioned, depending on the email provider you are using, there can be Thunderbird addons that sync your contacts between the provider  and Thunderbird For that you don't need anything dropboxy. Besides the one I mentioned for gmail, there is also one for exchange servers.

If you aren't using a mail provider that is compatible to an addon, there is also a further addon called ThunderSync which allows you to export/import your contacts to a file, which you then could store on DropBox.

A further option, provided you are using Windows PC's, would be to not install Thunderbird on the PC's themselves, but rather use PortableApps on a USB stick, and the PortableApps version of Thunderbird. You then use that same stick on all the PC's you want to run Thunderbird on. Just remember to regularly make a copy of the stick so you have a backup.

http://portableapps.com
http://portableapps.com/apps/internet/thunderbird_portable
ElrondCTCommented:
Well, you can easily move the folder that your mail is in: Go to the Server Settings for that account (Tools menu, Account Settings, Server Settings) and change the Local Directory. So if your profile (with the address book) is set to Dropbox, but the mail folders are set to your C: drive, I think you'd have what you want. It's kind of a backwards way to do it, but it should work.

I don't think there's any way to have the address book be in a location other than the profile folder.

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DanNetwork EngineerAuthor Commented:
The sync with all my accounts will not work, I'm not going to have 3 or 4 different email accounts try to sync, that just doesn't make sense.

The portable apps solution doesn't make sense either, I don't want to carry around a USB just so I can check my email.

I'll try the suggestion from Elrond, and if that works, then I guess I can leave the profile folder in my dropbox and that will solve my issue.

I'll keep you updated.
DanNetwork EngineerAuthor Commented:
Thanks guys, what did the trick is this:

What I did is copy the profile folder to dropbox and then in the run box I ran: C:\Program Files (x86)\Mozilla Thunderbird\thunderbird.exe -profilemanager
Then just created a new profile and selected the location where I had moved my files to.
Then just told it to use this new profile as the default profile.

This actually works, but I don't want everything to run from dropbox, just my address book.

Then I just went to the settings for each mailbox and directed the email to be stored on my local PC.

This does what I wanted, Thunderbird should make this easier for people to do, but oh well.

Thanks again for your help
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