How to get Thunderbird to collect addresses from not-already-downloaded IMAP messages?

Question

I've created a new Thunderbird account to work with an IMAP account of mine on some mail server. I have all the message headers downloaded now, not all the bodies, and have read a couple of messages. Unfortunately, Thunderbird's 'Collected Addresses' only seems to include addresses from the few messages I've read or written, not from all messages whose headers have been downloaded.

• Is there some configuration value I can change to make Thunderbird look for addresses in all of my headers?
• Is there perhaps some 'manual' way to collect these addresses, say into abook.mab?

Solution 1

The Email Address Crawler Plugin might work. Note that the earlier version is no longer maintained. To use the updated version:

1. Follow the direct download link. (Attention this is not approved by Mozila jet, see comment below)
2. Start Thunderbird (v31.0 or greater).
3. Open the triple-bar menu (≡).
4. Click Add-ons.
5. Click the icon beside the search text box to open a drop-down menu.
6. Select Install Add-on From File...*
7. Browse to the download location for Email Crawler.
8. Select the file (e.g., emailcrawler-5.1.2.xpi).
9. Click Open.
10. Click Install Now.
11. Click Restart Now.

Then:

1. Right-click on any folder.
2. Select Crawl folder for email addresses.
3. Check To and From.
4. Set Choose a [sic] addressbook as a target for the found addresses to Collected Addresses.
5. Optionally, set Needed # of occurrences to 2 (to help filter invalid addresses).
6. Click OK.

---

If you want to use an approved Plugin from Moxilla Add-On Page, maybe the Email Address Crawler Plugin is a solution for you?

EMail Address Crawler by CySlider
Automatically fill your address books or send mass mails with e-mail addresses extracted from all your e-mails.

It is a bit outdated, but there is stated by someone it that still worked in 17.0, so maybe it still works in Thunderbird 31

Solution 2

I founded one that worked well here: EmailPicky 4 (search for it in Mozilla Add-On Page)

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/emailpicky-4/

Comments

[Gravity]

see this: superuser.com/questions/353181/…

[einpoklum]

@Turbine: That doesn't help, that question regards a single message.

[einpoklum]

I need to try it. On first appearance, it looks like it should work with TB 24.x , but now I need to create a new account with no messages downloaded, to test it.

[Dave Jarvis]

EMail Address Crawler 3 did not work for me using Thunderbird v31.

[Bug J.]

Emailcrawler would be a good choice, but the Mozilla approved plugin version does not work with recent TBird. (2015 february).

[einpoklum]

I dunno, you run the risk of sending out those replies by mistake at some point. Also, I'll need to reapply that procedure repeatedly...

[benjaoming]

Emailcrawler works with TB 45. The new URL is: freeshell.de//~kaosmos/index-en.html#eac -- make note that you have to left+click, then right-click before selecting "Crawl folder", otherwise it will crawl the previously selected folder.

[fixer1234]

The description talks about getting information from downloaded messages, but doesn't mention anything about getting it from the server for messages that aren't in Thunderbird. Are you sure this does what's asked in the question?

[jpenna]

"Is there some configuration value I can change to make Thunderbird look for addresses in all of my headers?" He is not asking for messages which aren't in Thunderbird, but for messages which headers were downloaded. For what I tried, this plugin works for this matter.

[einpoklum]

While doing that is possible workaround, it's not what I asked; I want Thunderbird to do it...

[gordie]

5.1.2 Not working with TB 60.6.1

[clankill3r]

windows only :(