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Outlook contacts synced to address book overriding other address books

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DavidBE
DavidBE
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I am ... puzzled.

I'm trying to decide the best way to deal with having address books (and calendars and task lists) in Thunderbird, my Windows 10 laptop's native apps, Outlook.com, gmail.com, the native apps on my Android phone and Blue Mail on the phone, to which end I've been finding out what will sync with what and how.

For awhile in the Thunderbird address book I've had a GMail address book syncing with my gmail.com account via the gContactSync add-on as well as the default Personal and Collected address books, with the Personal and Gmail address books in Thunderbird being essentially identical in content. The other day I added an Outlook (Contacts) address book in Thunderbird syncing with my outlook.com account via the TbSync and Provider for Exchange ActiveSync add-ons, where I had in fact exported the Gmail.com contacts and then imported them into the outlook.com contacts before then syncing that with Thunderbird, causing the Outlook (Contacts) address book to be created in Thunderbird and populated with the contacts from the outlook.com cloud address book. So the Outlook address book in Thunderbird has (mostly - it has an extra two outlook contacts in it) the same contacts as the Personal and Gmail ones ... except for the display names. The gmail.com address book in the cloud doesn't get the Thunderbird display names when it syncs, so the outlook.com address book in the cloud didn't get them when I imported the contacts from gmail.com. But when the Exchange Active Sync add-on created the Outlook (Contacts) address book in Thunderbird it populated the display name field with entries it made up from the Name fields ... which are NOT the same as many of the display names - ESPECIALLY those of my own 6 email addresses as separate contacts - I gave them in the Personal and Gmail Thunderbird address books. (Yeah, and this whole business of trying to figure out the best way to sync two different address books on the phone with two different books in the cloud and two different ones on the laptop is really making my head hurt too).

Now here's the thing - in the main Thunderbird message list display, and in the actual message display, Thunderbird is using the Outlook (Contacts) address book display name, and not the display names (the same as each other) from the Personal and/or Gmail address books. And I don't know why. Also if e.g on the To in an email to me I click on the display name and click edit contact, it presents the Outlook (Contacts) contact picked by default rather than the Personal or Gmail contacts. And I still don't know why. I have set the option to use the Personal address book as the default, and it makes no difference. Whether I set the contact in the Personal and/or Gmail address book to use the display name or not makes no difference. The only thing that makes a difference is if I set the contact in the Outlook (Contacts) address book to use the display name, then I see the Outlook address book display name in the messages list and message displays, and if I set it NOT to use the display name, then I just get the email address showing in the message list and messages and NOT the display names from either the Personal or Gmail address books even if they have Use the Display name ticked. So, I have a choice between the display name from the Outlook address book, or no display name. I cannot get the Personal or Gmail address book display names to work now.

Just to be clear - I am NOT asking for workarounds. I can work round the problem. The address books are not that big, and if push comes to shove I can run through the contacts in the Outlook address book and manually change the display names - and whatever my final decision about how to coordinate these two cloud, two laptop, two phone address books, it may well mean I use something other than the outlook.com book to be the base of the syncing.

I AM asking ... WTF? I'm just really puzzled as to what is going on in Thunderbird. Is there a setting I don't know about that is forcing the use of the Outlook address book over the other two? Is there something about the exchange activesync add-on that is usurping control of the TB addressbook whatever settings I have? Is it a bug? Can I really not use Personal or Gmail-synced addressbook display names while there's an active syncing Outlook address book?

I am ... puzzled. I'm trying to decide the best way to deal with having address books (and calendars and task lists) in Thunderbird, my Windows 10 laptop's native apps, Outlook.com, gmail.com, the native apps on my Android phone and Blue Mail on the phone, to which end I've been finding out what will sync with what and how. For awhile in the Thunderbird address book I've had a GMail address book syncing with my gmail.com account via the gContactSync add-on as well as the default Personal and Collected address books, with the Personal and Gmail address books in Thunderbird being essentially identical in content. The other day I added an Outlook (Contacts) address book in Thunderbird syncing with my outlook.com account via the TbSync and Provider for Exchange ActiveSync add-ons, where I had in fact exported the Gmail.com contacts and then imported them into the outlook.com contacts before then syncing that with Thunderbird, causing the Outlook (Contacts) address book to be created in Thunderbird and populated with the contacts from the outlook.com cloud address book. So the Outlook address book in Thunderbird has (mostly - it has an extra two outlook contacts in it) the same contacts as the Personal and Gmail ones ... except for the display names. The gmail.com address book in the cloud doesn't get the Thunderbird display names when it syncs, so the outlook.com address book in the cloud didn't get them when I imported the contacts from gmail.com. But when the Exchange Active Sync add-on created the Outlook (Contacts) address book in Thunderbird it populated the display name field with entries it made up from the Name fields ... which are NOT the same as many of the display names - ESPECIALLY those of my own 6 email addresses as separate contacts - I gave them in the Personal and Gmail Thunderbird address books. (Yeah, and this whole business of trying to figure out the best way to sync two different address books on the phone with two different books in the cloud and two different ones on the laptop is really making my head hurt too). Now here's the thing - in the main Thunderbird message list display, and in the actual message display, Thunderbird is using the Outlook (Contacts) address book display name, and not the display names (the same as each other) from the Personal and/or Gmail address books. And I don't know why. Also if e.g on the To in an email to me I click on the display name and click edit contact, it presents the Outlook (Contacts) contact picked by default rather than the Personal or Gmail contacts. And I still don't know why. I have set the option to use the Personal address book as the default, and it makes no difference. Whether I set the contact in the Personal and/or Gmail address book to use the display name or not makes no difference. The only thing that makes a difference is if I set the contact in the Outlook (Contacts) address book to use the display name, then I see the Outlook address book display name in the messages list and message displays, and if I set it NOT to use the display name, then I just get the email address showing in the message list and messages and NOT the display names from either the Personal or Gmail address books even if they have Use the Display name ticked. So, I have a choice between the display name from the Outlook address book, or no display name. I cannot get the Personal or Gmail address book display names to work now. Just to be clear - I am NOT asking for workarounds. I can work round the problem. The address books are not that big, and if push comes to shove I can run through the contacts in the Outlook address book and manually change the display names - and whatever my final decision about how to coordinate these two cloud, two laptop, two phone address books, it may well mean I use something other than the outlook.com book to be the base of the syncing. I AM asking ... WTF? I'm just really puzzled as to what is going on in Thunderbird. Is there a setting I don't know about that is forcing the use of the Outlook address book over the other two? Is there something about the exchange activesync add-on that is usurping control of the TB addressbook whatever settings I have? Is it a bug? Can I really not use Personal or Gmail-synced addressbook display names while there's an active syncing Outlook address book?