I suggest you do a websearch for ' convert vcf to csv ' as there are free websites to do that. That should delineate the addresses such that you can then import to Thunderbird.

Thank you - I'll try that.

I looked into the conversion option, but after I checked out three websites and found all three are Chinese sites with very sketchy reports about them (one person said they uploaded a 1mb file and got back a 14 mb file. They didn't open it.) I don't think I'll try that. Uploading lots of other people's email addresses to a site I don't know doesn't seem right.

Seems like Protonmail and Thunderbird (all reputable companies, in other words) should offer a conversion tool.

I decided to test myself. I created a vcf file of my addressbook and then tried the Thunderbird import tool and it worked perfectly. I do not know your problem, but to help determine the issue, I suggest you - create 2 or 3 addresses in thunderbird addressbook - export as a vcf - using a text editor browse this exported vcf and the protonmail vcf to detect any file format differences and adjust as needed.

Otherwise, the import works.

Interesting. It must have something to do with Protonmail, then. I've tried it repeatedly with re-starts, full reboots, etc. Nothing. I'll go back to Protonmail.

Thank you for taking the time to do that. I appreciate it.

Interesting discussion, but are the vcard files even in a compatible version?

IIRC Thunderbird uses vcard version 4. The version information is about the second line of the file if you open it in a text editor as shown by the sample VCF file shown below sourced from https://www.w3.org/2002/12/cal/vcard-examples/

BEGIN:VCARD
VERSION:3.0
N:Doe;John;;;
FN:John Doe
ORG:Example.com Inc.;
TITLE:Imaginary test person
EMAIL;type=INTERNET;type=WORK;type=pref:johnDoe@example.org
TEL;type=WORK;type=pref:+1 617 555 1212
TEL;type=WORK:+1 (617) 555-1234
TEL;type=CELL:+1 781 555 1212
TEL;type=HOME:+1 202 555 1212
item1.ADR;type=WORK:;;2 Enterprise Avenue;Worktown;NY;01111;USA
item1.X-ABADR:us
item2.ADR;type=HOME;type=pref:;;3 Acacia Avenue;Hoemtown;MA;02222;USA
item2.X-ABADR:us
NOTE:John Doe has a long and varied history\, being documented on more police files that anyone else.  Reports of his death are alas numerous.
item3.URL;type=pref:http\://www.example/com/doe
item3.X-ABLabel:_$!<HomePage>!$_
item4.URL:http\://www.example.com/Joe/foaf.df
item4.X-ABLabel:FOAF
item5.X-ABRELATEDNAMES;type=pref:Jane Doe
item5.X-ABLabel:_$!<Friend>!$_
CATEGORIES:Work,Test group
X-ABUID:5AD380FD-B2DE-4261-BA99-DE1D1DB52FBE\:ABPerson
END:VCARD

You might want to check the file you have correctly defines the email address, if that is what is missing. (As the format supports multiple email addresses and multiple physical addresses, simply saying the address is missing is not realy clear what is missing)

Thanks for that. But the vcf file is version 4. I've emailed Protonmail again - they need to fix this. It's ridiculous.

Protonmail has tested on their end and opened a bug report with their team - after telling me twice that they could export contacts with no problem, they finally read my emails and got it that I could do that too - but Thunderbird couldn't import them. They tested with Thunderbird and discovered that the Protonmail export has a bug. So I can hope it gets fixed soon.

Thanks to everyone here who helped me with this.

Actually them offering an encrypted CardDav connection to their online address book in the same way google do would be a preferable outcome as it would see contacts syncronised, not imported and exported.

Hey,

I stumbled upon this thread via search. I had the same issue with the *.vcf files exported from protonmail would not load all contacts. Just a ghost of the first one the list.

So I did as David suggested above, I created an address book in Thunderbird (V. 102.9.1 (64-bit)) and exported it as a .vcf.

I then opened them up side by side in notepad++ to compare the files to see if there were any glaring differences. As you can see by the attached photo, the Protonmail exported .vcf has the line "UID" above the "ITEM" line.

In the Thunderbird exported .vcf, the "ITEM" line is above the "UID" line.

So, I took my downloaded Protonmail .vcf, switched the lines to match the Thunderbird .vcf, imported the updated Protonmail .vcf to Thunderbird and BOOM. All contacts imported!

To respond to Matt, the versions are the same, as you can see.

A simple macro can make the changes for you if you have a larger contact list. Be careful with spaces when editing. Make sure the "BEGIN: VCARD is on a separate line from "END: VCARD".

Since this is still an issue, and Protonmail has a bug report open, I will contact them to let them know my solution to the issue. I hope it works for some!

Apologies for the poor cropping job. In a rush since I'm behind due to having to deal with this issue.

• April 6th Edit*

I emailed Protonmail and this was their reply:

Hi Winston,

Thank you for your message.

Kindly note that we are aware of this issue and we have an internal ticket so that our developers can work on resolving this.

We appreciate this extra information, we have added it to the internal report and also informed the devs directly.

Thank you for your patience while our developers are working on a fix for this.

Let us know if you have any further questions or feedback.

Kind regards,

Martina Customer Support Proton Mail

Protonmail has tested on their end and opened a bug report with their team - after telling me twice that they could export contacts with no problem, they finally read my emails and got it that I could do that too - but Thunderbird couldn't import them. They tested with Thunderbird and discovered that the Protonmail export has a bug. So I can hope it gets fixed soon. Thanks to everyone here who helped me with this.

I had the same problem - I've managed to solve it. I imported the PM export via Google Mail. I then exported the contact folder/record from google, saved as a google csv and then imported on TB.

Seems to have worked fine. Quick dirty work around - but it works.