I am a long time Thunderbird user and spend most of my time there, reading and replying mails. Since I am running daily builds of Thunderbird, I am also able to chat with my Google friends from Thunderbird. One of the advantages of using Mozilla projects is extensions. They turn a simply application into a powerful multi-purpose tool. So, I thought of writing a series of articles about the extensions I use.

Syncing Contacts
One thing that I missed under Thunderbird was not being able to access my Gmail addresses. Yes, you can export and download your address-book from Gmail and then import it into Thunderbird but that doesn't keep the contacts synced. if there is a way to connect your Thunderbird address-book with Gmail's address-book and keep it synced will make life easier.

The extension that I use to keep my Gmail contacts synced with Thunderbird address-book is 'Google Contacts' by H.Ogi. Once installed it will automatically sync contacts from all the Gmail accounts that you are using with Thunderbird. If you are someone like me who uses multiple Gmail accounts, you can choose which account do you want to use to sync contacts. I keep all my accounts synced. You can also create new contact from Thunderbird and then choose with which Google account do you want to sync it with.

There are many other settings to manage the extension. You can manage your entire Google Contacts from within Thunderbird, just make sure that you have configured it correctly and don't delete contacts by mistake as it will also delete it from your Google Contacts. However, you can choose what the extension should do when you delete any contact from the local address-book.

Install the extension
Just search for Google Contacts in the Thunderbird add-on Manager and enable the extension. Go on download and install the extension and tell us if you find it useful. Tip Us if you know better way of syncing your Gmail contacts with Thunderbird.