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How do I remove an outdated list from my Address Book?

  • 7 replies
  • 4 have this problem
  • 2 views
  • Last reply by cnye

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I'm the Board Secretary for a non-profit and have to send out notices to directors. My old list of directors contains obsolete addresses that bounce back. I want to get rid of it (or rename it) so that only the new list (same name) appears in the panel on the left when I go into Address Book. It won't delete, won't let me drag it to trash, won't let me edit it out. How can I get rid of it? Thanks.

I'm the Board Secretary for a non-profit and have to send out notices to directors. My old list of directors contains obsolete addresses that bounce back. I want to get rid of it (or rename it) so that only the new list (same name) appears in the panel on the left when I go into Address Book. It won't delete, won't let me drag it to trash, won't let me edit it out. How can I get rid of it? Thanks.

Chosen solution

your not trying to delete stuff out of the read only mac address book are you?

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All Replies (7)

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have you tried right click > delete

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Matt (or anyone else),

Thanks for looking at this.

I'm on a Mac and the equivalent of right click is Command-click. I tried that with Delete. And when that didn't work, I tried Delete with the Control and Option keys--nothing. Seems to me, when I go into Properties (from the EDIT dropdown menu) I should be able to edit out the names at least, but that didn't work either.

Any other ideas?

Chris

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On a Mac, Command-click is middle-click, and Control-click is right-click.

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hold shift while you start Thunderbird to enter safe mode. Try again and see if an add-on might be the issue.

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This is helpful but doesn't solve the problem.

When I do Control/click, it brings up an option box with "delete" as the option at the bottom of the box. However, "delete" is grayed out and therefore inactive. I was able to use this approach to get rid of another obsolete list in my address book, but with this particular list, which is the real problem for me, the delete option is visible but inoperative.

Also, I restarted T'bird holding down the shift key, as suggested. Tried again to delete list, no luck. Don't know what I am looking for in terms of an add-on issue.

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Chosen Solution

your not trying to delete stuff out of the read only mac address book are you?

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cnye said

I'm the Board Secretary for a non-profit and have to send out notices to directors. My old list of directors contains obsolete addresses that bounce back. I want to get rid of it (or rename it) so that only the new list (same name) appears in the panel on the left when I go into Address Book. It won't delete, won't let me drag it to trash, won't let me edit it out. How can I get rid of it? Thanks.

Dear Matt,

Thank you for sticking with this. Prompted by you last message, I went back into the listing of lists on the left-hand panel of address book and decided to try deleting the heading under which this problem list appeared. The delete option worked this time, getting rid of the heading, and with it the list subsumed under it. To the end it was impossible to delete the list by clicking on it alone.

Best wishes,

Chris