Exporting distribution lists from Thunderbird to Outlook PLEASE NOTE: Do not export the lists under Distribution Lists in your Thunderbird Address Book as these will no longer be maintained on the new system. Only export your personally made lists 1. Open Thunderbird and then open your Address Book. 2. Choose the distribution list you want to export - In this example I am choosing the SaBS Computer Support list. 3. Then click on Tools > Export 4. In the Export Address Book window, choose somewhere to save your file. The example is saving to Desktop. You can put it anywhere, just make sure you know where you re saving it so you can find it later. 5. Click on the Save as type dropdown and choose Comma Separated 6. Give your export file a name in the File name section. It doesn t matter what you call this file, just as long as you can find it later. 7. Click on Save.
8. In Outlook, near the bottom left, click on Contacts to display your contacts section. 9. Now in the top left section of Outlook, click on the little drop down arrow to the right of the New button, then click on Folder 10. We re now creating a temporary folder to store our list members in, so give it a name like temp as in the example. 11. Make sure that Contacts is highlighted and click OK. 12. Click on File > Import and Export 13. Leave it on Import from another program or file and click Next.
14. Select Comma Separated Values (Windows) and click Next. 15. Select Browse, then locate and select the file you exported from Thunderbird in steps 1 to 7. 16. Make sure to select the temp folder you created in step 10 under Contacts and click Next. NOTE: You will only need to Map Custom Fields (steps 17 to 21) the first time you are importing addresses from Thunderbird. Subsequent imports will remember these settings and you will be able to click Finish at the Import a File screen below and go straight to step 22. 17. Click the Map Custom Fields button
18. Click on the + symbol next to Name in the right pane to expand that entry and check that First Name and Last Name are matched up. It should look like this. If not, click and drag First Name and/or Last Name from the left to the right. In this example, we can see First Name has already been matched and I am dragging Last Name from the left pane and about to drop it onto Last Name on the right to match them up. 19. Scroll down the right pane until you see the E-mail entry. Click the + symbol next to it to expand it. E-mail Address should be matched with Primary Email. If not, click and drag Primary Email from the left pane and drop it onto E-mail Address on the right to match it up like so. That should do for field mapping. Feel free to map more if you have more details you want to keep from your Thunderbird addresses such as phone numbers and home addresses etc. 20. Click OK on the Map Custom Fields window. 21. Click Finish on the Import a File window. Your distribution list addresses are now imported into the temp folder.
We will now create the distribution list in Outlook and fill it with the addresses held in the temp folder. 22. Select the Contacts folder under My Contacts 23. Then click on the little drop down arrow to the right of the New button and click on Distribution List 24. Give your list a name. Most likely the same name you called this list in Thunderbird. 25. Then click on the Select Members button. 26. Select your temp folder from the Address Book dropdown. 27. Highlight all addresses by clicking the top address, hold Shift on your keyboard, then click the bottom address. 28. Click the Members button to populate the members area with all addresses. Click OK.
29. We can see the list has been populated with our addresses. Click the Save & Close button The Distribution List has been created in the Contacts section. You can right click on it and select Create > New Message to Contact to send a message to that list. Another way of sending to the list is when you re creating a new email, click the To: button
Select Contacts from the Address Book dropdown. Select your distribution list Then click either the To button, which will allow recipients to see all addresses the email was sent to Or click the Bcc button which will hide all email addresses from recipients. Click OK. By default the Bcc button on the new email window is hidden until you choose to Bcc a contact from the contacts window as seen above. To always have the Bcc button visible on an email window, click on Options and then the Show Bcc button.
NOTE: If you want to import more distribution lists, make sure to clear the temp folder of any existing addresses. Go to your Contacts, select the temp folder, select at least one address inside and then press the Ctrl key and the A key on your keyboard at the same time to select all entries. Now press the Delete key on your keyboard to delete all entries. You re now ready to import more distribution lists.