Written by Jennifer Walsh. Reviewed for technical accuracy by Shubham Dixit, Independent Expert in Email Forensics and Data File Conversion.
Shubham is an independent external reviewer and not an employee of PCDOTS.
Quick answer. Extracting email addresses from Thunderbird means one of two things, your saved contacts or every address in your mail. For contacts, export the Thunderbird address book, including Collected Addresses, to a CSV. To gather every sender and recipient across a mailbox and remove duplicates, a tool pulls them all into one CSV.
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Which addresses do you mean?
Before you start, it helps to know that this can mean two different things, and each has its own route. One is your saved contacts, the address book you have built up, including the ones Thunderbird gathered for you. The other is every address that appears in your mail, the senders and recipients spread across your messages. The first is a quick free export. The second is bigger, and where a tool earns its place. A fair word first, these routes are for your own contacts and correspondence, a backup, a migration or a record of who you deal with, not for collecting strangers who never agreed to hear from you.
Saved contacts export in a click, every address in your mail wants a tool.
“The first question I ask is whether someone wants their contacts or every address in the mail, because the answer changes the method entirely. Saved contacts, including the Collected Addresses book, export straight to a CSV for free. Pulling every sender and recipient out of a full mailbox and removing the duplicates is a different job, and that is where a tool saves real time. In records and discovery work I use it constantly, though always on mail the person is entitled to, which is the line that matters.” Shubham Dixit, Email Forensics reviewer (draft, pending approval)
Free, export the address book
If you want your contacts, Thunderbird hands them over for free. Open the Address Book, and you will see your Personal Address Book and, usually, a Collected Addresses book that Thunderbird filled with people you have written to. Select a book, then use the Tools menu and Export, and save it as a CSV, or as LDIF or vCard if you prefer. The CSV opens in any spreadsheet, one row per contact, addresses in their own column. That is the whole free route for your saved addresses.
Address Book, Tools, Export, and your contacts land in a CSV.
Free, from the messages themselves
Sometimes the address you want is not in a contact at all, it is sitting in a message. For one or two, open the message, right-click the name in the header, and choose Copy Email Address, then paste it wherever you need. For a whole folder, the free ImportExportTools NG add-on can export the folder as an index, right-click the folder, choose Export, and pick the just the index (CSV) option. You get a spreadsheet with the From, To, Subject and Date of every message, which puts a folder worth of addresses in one file. It is free, though the addresses are mixed in with the other columns, so you tidy them afterward.
Every address at once, a tool
When you want every unique address from a big mailbox, senders and recipients alike, with the duplicates removed, doing it by hand is the slow part. A tool reads the whole profile and writes out one clean list. The PCDOTS Thunderbird Converter reads your Thunderbird mail on Windows and pulls the addresses from From, To and Cc across every folder into a CSV, with filters so you can narrow by field and a preview before you save. A free version lets you try it on a folder first. Use it on your own mail, and mind consent before you write to anyone new.
The tool route, a whole mailbox to one clean list of addresses.
Here are the steps with the screens.
Step 1. Install and run the software on Windows, then open the menu.
Step 2. Choose Thunderbird and load your configured profile.
Step 3. Open the Extract menu and choose Email Addresses, then set the fields.
Step 4. Pick a destination and Save the CSV.
If what you actually want is the emails themselves rather than the addresses, see our guide to save Thunderbird emails as EML. For the same address job on other files, see extract email addresses from EML files and collect email addresses from Outlook.
The methods compared
Match the route to what you are after.
| Method | Best for | Good to know |
|---|---|---|
| Address book export | Saved contacts, free | CSV, LDIF or vCard |
| Copy or index a folder | A few, or one folder | ImportExportTools NG index CSV |
| Thunderbird Converter | Every address, deduped | Windows, From, To and Cc |
Frequently asked questions
How do I export my Thunderbird contacts for free?
Open the Address Book, select a book such as Personal or Collected Addresses, then use Tools and Export and save it as a CSV, LDIF or vCard.
What are Collected Addresses in Thunderbird?
A book Thunderbird fills automatically with addresses you have written to. It exports the same way as any other address book.
How do I copy one address from a message?
Open the message, right-click the name in the header, and choose Copy Email Address, then paste it wherever you need.
How do I get every address from a whole mailbox?
A tool reads the profile and pulls addresses from From, To and Cc across all folders into one CSV, with the duplicates removed, which is far quicker than doing it by hand.
Can I get the addresses from just one folder for free?
Yes. The ImportExportTools NG add-on can export a folder as an index CSV, which includes the From and To of every message for you to tidy.
Is it alright to use these addresses to send mail?
Use them for your own contacts and correspondence, a backup, a migration or a record. Sending to people who have not agreed to hear from you is a different matter, so mind consent.
Get your addresses into a CSV
So it comes down to what you are after. If it is your contacts, open the Address Book, export, and you have a clean CSV in under a minute, Collected Addresses included, at no cost. If it is a stray address or two, copy them from the message. And if you need every sender and recipient from a full mailbox with the duplicates stripped out, load the profile into the Thunderbird Converter choose Email Addresses, and save the list. Pick the route that fits, keep it to mail you are entitled to, and your addresses are in a spreadsheet and ready to use.
