Are you sure your not sending mail to the addresses so they get added again? (collected address book)

This usually means that the data file for the affected address book is damaged.

What I do is :

Export the address book to an LDIF file. Delete the affected address book. Import the LDIF file. If necessary, move the contents of the imported address book back to the preferred location.

At step 2, you will be able to delete the address book if it's one you defined yourself. If it's Personal Address Book or Collected Addresses, you'll need to close Thunderbird, locate its profile and delete the data file.

Personal Address Book = abook.mab Collected Addresses = history.mab

Thanks! this fixed problem. I backed up local and roaming profiles and then exported address book as an LDIF file named newtry. Deleted abook.mab from both profiles and then imported the newtry LDIF. This created a anew contact list named newtry. After much fiddling I moved the contacts to the default Personal Address Book. I checked profiles and the abook.mab file was not regenerated in the local profile. I could not see a newtry.mab. After moving contacts back into the Personal Address Book the roamng abook.mab file size is 40K. Before I did all this the file size 140K. Also the LDIF newtry file size was over 1 MB. Can you explain some of the? Roaming profile also has three *.mab files named impab, impab-1 and impab-2. What are these? files created 1/18/2008. Thanks again for your help. Just curious about the above.

Matt,

Thanks for your suggestion. That was not what was happening

I am having the same problem. I went through these steps:

1. Export the address book to an LDIF file. 2. Delete the affected address book. In my case, all my addresses were in Personal Address Book, so I deleted abook.mab. 3. Import the LDIF file. 4. If necessary, move the contents of the imported address book back to the preferred location.

I did not do step 4 because I'm not sure how to do that. However, I still cannot delete contacts I no longer want in my address book.

Any suggestions greatly appreciated.

Restart Thunderbird with add-ons disabled (Thunderbird Safe Mode). On the Help menu, click on "Restart with Add-ons Disabled". If Thunderbird works like normal, there is an Add-on or Theme interfering with normal operations. You will need to re-enable add-ons one at a time until you locate the offender.

to queenmab100:

What version of windows are you using? I have Window 10. There are two profiles i.e Local and Roaming and each has a abook.mab See how I was able to fix my problem but never got answers about other *.mab or why abook.mab was not replicated in both profiles.

AFAIK, the local is a Windows anomaly and is best ignored. Roaming is the one that matters.

Hi Matt, I restarted TB with all add-ons disabled and was able to delete email addresses. So, as you suggested, it must be one of the add-ons which is causing the problem. However, I do not know how to " re-enable add-ons one at a time". The attached file shows the add-on screen with all add-ons disabled but there is not option to enable just one at a time. Do I need to remove all of them and then add them back one by one?

There is a picture of the screen with them all ENABLED

So click the disable button beside them all then restart. The buttons will them offer the option to enable the add-ons

Okay, it appears that the add-on "confirm before delete" is the problem. When that add-on is enabled, I cannot delete email address from my address book. I have three other add-ons and when they are enabled. I can delete email addresses. Any thoughts?

BTW, that add-on has an 'option' labeled "enable the confirm to delete the addressbook’s contacts". Whether that box is checked or not, I cannot delete an email address. And when it is checked and I get the confirm pop-up, I *am* selecting 'okay. Still, the email address is not deleted. (see pictures attached)

Thanks for your help.

Thought I'd check to see if there is an update for this add-on. Last update I have is 5/7/15. However, I cannot get to the link for the update. See attached.

Okay, I found a way to update the add-on and now all seems to be working. Yikes, that was time-consuming! Thanks for your help.

You're the best!