Synchronizing Google contacts and Thunderbird address books

I've developed a new extension for Thunderbird named Google Contacts. This extension accesses to Google contacts and synchronize them with Thunderbird address books.

After you installed the extension, it detects all the Gmail accounts which have already set up on Thunderbird and accesses to the contacts for them. Then, it creates address books named Google-accountname for each of them. It is OK to rename them.

When you update cards in the address books, the changes are immediately applied to the contacts in Google; if you delete a card, the contact will be remove from Google; if you add a new card to the address book, a contact is added to Google. This is similar to the way IMAP updates messages.

If you delete the address book, the contacts for the account are no more synchronized. If you want to sync them again, open Config Editor and change the value of gmcont.accountname.sync to true.

The extension retrieve Goolge contacts automatically when Thunderbird launches. If you don't want to synchronize at startup add gmcont.auth_at_startup and set its value false. Please note that you should sync Thunderbird and Google by clicking the Reload button in either the main or the address book window before you modify address book cards if you use the configuration.

There are the following limitations:

• Only items shared by Google and Thunderbird are synchronized,
• You have to input an email address or display name for a card. This is specification of Google,
• All the changes while you did on offline will be discarded when you go online,
• Only accounts which already set up are synchronized.

This is initial version and may involve serious bugs. So, please don't forget to backup Google contacts before you use the extension.

If you find any problems or have requests, please let me know.

Update1
There is one more limitation which I forgot to write. It cannot sync Thunderbird's lists and Gmail's groups. This is because Google does not provide API for retrieving and modifying groups. Therefore, it is difficult to realize the functionality so far.

Update2
The latest version has an option dialog. So, you can set up preferences easily by the dialog, not by the Config Editor.

Update3
Gmail's contact groups are supported by Google Contacts v0.2.10. TB specific properties are also stored in Google contacts by the version. See this post for details. Try it!

Update4
Offline changes can be synchronized when you click the Reload button. It has been supported by v0.3 or later.

Check and Send 0.8.10

I've finished the beta test for Check and Send 0.8 and released v0.8.10. Thank you for your feedbacks during the test.

v0.8.10 includes the following new functionalities:

• check file extensions for attachments
• check a message subject in attachments/word checking
• negated expression in attachments/word checking
• recipient name checking

See the extension's option dialog for the details.
You can control the timing when the recipient name checking is invoked. See the post for the setting.

Gmail IMAP Account Setup 1.4.50

Gmail IMAP Account Setup 1.4.50 is now available for download.
tr-TR locale is newly supported in this version.

Shredder Alpha 1 (Thunderbird3a1) is out!

Shredder Alpha1 is available now. Shredder is used for alpha of Thunderbird in order to prevent users from mixing with a product release, as alphas of Firefox did. I like the name because the word well describes the dangerousness of Alpha. Please note that you should use Shredder for test not for daily use. It's alpha and you should use it at your own risk.

This is the first alpha for Thunderbird 3 but it includes some noticeable features have already been added. You can see newly added features from a release note. The new addons manager looks.

Thunderbird team is now towards Shredder Alpha2. Code freeze for alpha2 is planed on July 8, 23:59 Pacific.

Check and Send 0.8.00b9

Check and Send 0.8.00b9 is available for download now. This will be the last beta for v0.8 release. I don't plan to add new functionalities to v0.8 anymore; if you need a new functionality, this will be implemented in v0.9. b9 has been translated to some languages but some strings have not been translated yet in some locales. Translators are working for these strings now, so they will be fully translated by the time when Check and Send 0.8.10 is released.

In addtion to the locale update, b9 includes a hidden preference: chksend.recip_replace_event. This preference determins when the recipient name checking is performed. If you want to use the preference set up it as follows:

1. Open Config Editor
2. Create new preference as Interger
3. Set its name chksend.recip_replace_event
4. Set its value to
• 0: check on opening a composer
• 1: check before sending a message
• 2: both

If you want to set this option only for an identity and you know the key for the identity, create mail.identity.idXXX.chksend.recip_replace_event instead of the preferece above.