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How do I recover an address book contact deleted by mistake?

  • 6 replies
  • 5 have this problem
  • 54 views
  • Last reply by ELMorrison

ELMorrison
ELMorrison

Deleted a contact by mistake and need to put it back. Don't have the original email from the contact.

Deleted a contact by mistake and need to put it back. Don't have the original email from the contact.

Chosen solution

Deleted contacts are not moved to the Trash folder.

Did you right-click on an address book and choose the Recover/Restore option as shown in the picture attached to my reply? The add-on is working properly here to recover deleted contacts.

Read this answer in context 👍 2

All Replies (6)

christ1
christ1
  • Top 25 Contributor

Look through your sent messages. If you ever sent a message to that contact, you'll have the email address.

ELMorrison
ELMorrison Question owner

Actually, Christ1's reply was reasonable, and I did check my Sent folder and other relevant folders where I should have stored an email, but couldn't find the one I was seeking.

Which raises another question: Can Thunderbird become so overtaxed that it drops messages from folders? Or maybe it's my brain....

sfhowes
sfhowes
  • Top 25 Contributor

If you install MoreFunctionsForAddressBook, it can restore deleted contacts.

ELMorrison
ELMorrison Question owner

So I downloaded and installed the Add-on. . . and had to restart TB, which emptied my trash folder (where the deleted contact was presumably housed). And, when I visited the add-on after installation, I found nothing relating to recovery of any kind. It's mostly about importing and manipulating vCards, which I'm not interested in. So, no, it didn't help. I'll keep the add-on for a bit, in case someone can tell my how its recovery function is supposed to work.

sfhowes
sfhowes
  • Top 25 Contributor

Chosen Solution

Deleted contacts are not moved to the Trash folder.

Did you right-click on an address book and choose the Recover/Restore option as shown in the picture attached to my reply? The add-on is working properly here to recover deleted contacts.

ELMorrison
ELMorrison Question owner

Ah. I did not see the screen capture in your earlier reply. This time, I did it correctly, and I'm pretty sure the correct contact was restored. (I was a little apprehensive at the "...will be restored with a random-character name" part, but relieved to find I didn't need to restore/replace the entire address book manually.

So, thanks for sticking with me! ELM