The Personal Address Book is designed for general use. When you click the star to add an address to a book it goes into the personal book. The Collected book is designed to collect addresses from your outgoing mail. Those are the 2 default books in Thunderbird. If you have others then you have added them and only you know what they are for.

FYI: any contact added to a mailing list must be in the address book the list is being created in.

I just realized that the reason I have a third address book is because I imported my contacts from a gmail account that I'm now accessing via Thunderbird. So that's why when I create a list I have the option of three address books into which to put the list: the personal address book, the collected book, and the one associated with that gmail account.

So I have another question. Is there some way that I can transfer the contacts in the address book from that gmail account into my personal address book? I know I can drag them one at a time, but is there someway that I can move them all at once?

The reason I want to move them is because all new starred contacts go into my personal address book, and I'd like to have all of my contacts in one address book.

Thanks for your help!

It helps to learn Windows selection methods. Control+a selects all. Drag and drop to new book. https://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/windows/xp/all/proddocs/en-us/windows_fcab_select_files.mspx?mfr=true

I didn't realize I could do a select all in this instance.

Thank you!

Found the above extremely helpfull, but the street address info is not included in entry or entries when moved from the gmail associated address book to the Thunderbird Personal address book using drag & drop. Is this down to something I am doing wrong?