Daniel Brinneman

Rural Landscape Photographer

Sync iCloud Contacts with Mozilla Thunderbird

in

It was hard to find a solution for this until I reworded my search phrase and found it in two forums out of many deep dives. References at the end of this post.

Changes made on Mozilla Thunderbird or in iCloud Contacts will synchronize across all locations. Some of the same details can be used to set up your iCloud Contacts account with Microsoft People on Windows 11 if you prefer to use Microsoft Mail and Calendar from the Microsoft Store.

These set of instructions were performed on macOS with Mozilla Thunderbird. Your experience may vary if you are on Windows 11.


1. Go to Address Book in Mozilla Thunderbird and add a new CardDAV address book.

2. Put your iCloud email address in Username and https://contacts.icloud.com/contacts/ in Location.

3. Sign in to your Apple Account (https://appleid.apple.com/sign-in) and under Sign-in and Security click on App-Specific Passwords block.

4. Generate your new App-Specific Password by clicking on the plus symbol to the right of the dialog and give a name to the purpose of the generated password that will be a reminder to you in the future. I recommend the name of the application you will use it for and the name of function within the application. Click on Create.

5. In the next dialog enter in your Apple Account’s password and click on Continue.

6. Now you should see your new generated App-Specific Password. Copy it exactly as you see it before selecting Done.

7. Back in Mozilla Thunderbird you should see this first dialog box. Put in the App-Specific Password. Then the second dialog box will appear with a different address and you will put in the same App-Specific Password.

First dialog box
Second dialog box

8. Now you will see a dialog box with a “card” CardDAV address book from iCloud and click on Continue.

9. You are taken back to the list of address books with “card” in the list. Click on the horizontal three dots at the end and if this is your only address book then click on Default startup directory. Reopen the dropdown menu and click on Properties.

10. Change “card” to “iCloud Contacts” and “every 30 minutes” to “every 5 minutes” then click on OK.

11. If you make a change on your Apple devices and have iCloud enabled for Contacts then you should see the change after five minutes. If you want to see the change sooner, click on the horizontal three dots on iCloud Contacts and then click on Synchronize or set the Synchronize time from “every 5 minutes” to “every one minute” in Properties.


References

Discover more from Daniel Brinneman

Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.


Comments

19 responses to “Sync iCloud Contacts with Mozilla Thunderbird”

  1. Thanks for this post. Do you have photos associated with your contacts? If so, do they appear in Thunderbird address book? They don’t for me, even though they do for the windows people/contacts.

    Like

    1. Hi Nigel, Thanks for your comment. I read somewhere that they wouldn’t sync and there was some other field that also wouldn’t sync. I do have some photos but they don’t show up unless it’s iCloud or on an Apple device.

      Like

  2. Thanks so much for posting this. It saved me a lot of trouble. Is there any way that you know of to also integrate the iCloud calendar?

    Like

    1. Thanks for dropping by, Justin. I’m not sure at the moment. I’ll look into it and if I find a method, I will write a new post about it. Subscribe to know when my next post comes out.

      Like

    2. Justin, I’ve added links in a post. Hopefully this will point you in the right direction. https://danielbrinneman.com/sync-icloud-calendar-with-mozilla-thunderbird/

      Like

  3. […] links. For each, you will need to use an app-specific password. I explained how to get that in my Sync iCloud Contacts with Mozilla Thunderbird. Instead of redoing the work, I’ll provide the […]

    Like

  4. That process was so nice and easy, which is surprising if you want to do stuff with Apple outside of the Apple bubble. The guide was super helpful, thank you.

    Like

    1. Glad it was helpful. Thanks for stopping by, Felix.

      Like

  5. Fletch Hasues Avatar
    Fletch Hasues

    Have you noticed that the contacts birthday is off by one day when the contacts are sync’d from Thunderbird to ICloud? Mine are a day early.

    Like

    1. Thanks for stopping by, Fletch. That might be the case if your time zone isn’t set correctly in the account and on your computer. I have not seen that problem.

      Like

  6. Kristian Post Avatar
    Kristian Post

    Hello, Daniel.

    Thanks for the tip. I am going to give it a try. May I ask. Does the icloud account have to be @icloud.com? My apple ID is registered with my email address of my own domain. Am I supposed to create an @icloud.com address?

    Cheers!

    Kristian Post (of Denmark)

    Like

    1. Hi Kristian, Thanks for dropping by. Your custom email address connected to iCloud services, as the username, should work. Let me know how it turns out.

      Like

      1. Kristian Post Avatar
        Kristian Post

        Hello, Daniel.

        Right you are. 🙂

        Cheers! Kristian.

        Liked by 1 person

      2. Good for you!

        Like

      3. Kristian Post Avatar
        Kristian Post

        Indeed! I am visually impaired – that does not mean that my body can only be viewed from certain angles – But it does mean that screen work takes it’s toll, so I don’t want to do the same work wice – which I think was one of the basic funtions with all this computing stuff in the first place 🙂

        I have a small piano tuning business and need to keep my customer information in line, but I am limited to certain specific programs and configurations that don’t melt my eyes or rape the sockets – which regularly puts me in dilemmas like this. More than not I just give up trying to find a solution, and do the extra “leg work”. Which does not make me a happy panda. Being a middle aged [person], the combined amount of digital disappointment the past couple of decades has given me a darker perspctive on life and the purpose and capabilites of man.

        But then – every 500 years or so – a hero comes along.

        It is you, Daniel. – Release the masses from their anguish. Bring us out of this darkness so that we may all enjoy the wonders of unhindered unabashed arcaic pleasures.

        What I’m trying ti say is – Thank You… a lot!

        Liked by 1 person

  7. Basil Avatar

    I was trying to sync my iPhone contacts to Thunderbird on a Windows 10 PC. I followed instructions, but the “iCloud contacts” address book did not populate. Also all entries in my other address books disappeared. How can we fix this ?.. Thank you.

    [thirty minutes later the second comment was left]

    Never mind… somehow everything is fine after I restarted Thunderbird. Thanks for your help. Cheers.

    Like

    1. Basil, I’m glad you got it figured out. Thanks for dropping by.

      Like

  8. Walter Rogers Avatar
    Walter Rogers

    Will the thunderbird Icloud address contacts sync back to icloud? That is… can I change the thunderbird contact and update the iPhone icloud version?

    Like

    1. Walter, thanks for dropping by. From experience, they should sync. As mentioned in the comments and possibly in my post, some fields like the image, will not.

      Like

Leave a comment