Ever since I started using thunderbird (many years ago), its always bothered me that I would have separate contact lists in Google, Thunderbird, MYOB, and my customer mailing list (PHPList).

It was much worse, before I started using Google for contacts.

Back then, my phone would also have separate contacts that needed processing with each new phone! Now, with Android, I just use google!

I once looked at synchronising google contacts with thunderbird, but I didn’t get very far.

But recently, I found a thunderbird app called gContactSync.

I was a bit hesitant at first, and looked over the instructions very carefully, as this has the potential to backfire and wipe out all my google contacts.

So the first thing I did is use google contacts to export a backup of all my contact (more -> export)

Then I installed and configured gContactSync into thunderbird

Its always reassuring to know that gContactSync can be setup to sync my google contacts in a separate address book from the default (I named mine: Google Contacts).

After the initial sync (it took a few tries, and a few restarts of thunderbird to make it all happen), everything went very smoothly.

I’ve been using it now, for over 1 month, with 2 computers running thunderbird, with no problems.

Now: if only MYOB and PHPList would sync with google (i’m not holding my breath on that!), then I won’t have to triple-enter customer details!