Need to Import Addresses to Linux Abook? Easy Tutorial!

Alright, let’s talk about getting those addresses into abook. So, I wanted to import a bunch of email addresses into my abook address book. I use abook with mutt, it’s a pretty neat setup if you’re into that sort of thing.

First things first, I already had some contacts in abook. If you’re starting fresh, it’s even simpler. This program is super easy to use, anyone can master it quickly.

Get those addresses ready

I had my addresses in a file, but you could just as easily be pulling them from an email or somewhere else. The important thing is to have them in a format that abook can understand. I made a simple text file, with each address on its own line.

Using abook’s import feature

Now, abook has this neat little feature where it can import different file formats. If you’re dealing with Google contacts, you’re in luck, because it handles those like a champ.

• Fire up your terminal. We’re going command-line here.
• Navigate to where you saved your address file. You know, the usual `cd` commands.
• Run the command. This will look something like `abook –import your_address_file`. Replace `your_address_file` with the actual name of your file, obviously.

This creates a file named `myaddressbook` right there in your current directory.

Adding addresses from mutt

If you’re a mutt user, there’s a cool trick to add addresses directly from your emails. I set up a macro that lets me grab the sender’s address with a simple command.

• Edit your muttrc. Add this line: `set query_command=”abook –mutt-query ‘%s’”` and `macro pager A ‘abook –add-email’n`
• Restart mutt. Or just source your muttrc.
• Use the macro. When you’re viewing an email, just hit `A` and it’ll add the sender’s address to abook.

Double checking

After importing, it never hurts to peek inside your abook and make sure everything looks right. You can search for a contact, browse through them, whatever floats your boat. Abook is pretty simple to use for all that.

So, there you have it. Getting those addresses into abook. It’s a pretty smooth process, especially if you’re already familiar with the command line. And once you have your contacts in there, it makes using mutt or any other email client that integrates with abook a breeze. If you’re looking for a simple, text-based address book, abook is definitely worth checking out. This tool really helped me a lot, and I hope it will be useful to you as well.