thunderbird and google contacts

English Applications
1

So… I have not been able to sync my google contacts with Thunderbird for some time now. My thunderbird version after the latest update is 78.12.0 in 15.2 on my desktop and 91.1.0 on Tumbleweed on my laptop. Gcontactsync stopped being compatible with thunderbird some time ago. I looked up other options, and one that was suggested was cardbook. But the problem with cardbook is the permissions. It says it needs access to “Have full, unrestricted access to Thunderbird, and your computer”.

The Thunderbird permissions description says this means:

Extensions requesting this permission might:

  • Change every aspect of Thunderbird’s user interface
  • Read and modify all your data (messages, contacts, calendars, web content and passwords)
  • Read, modify and execute any file on your computer

So, like there is no way I am going to grant that kind of access to anything.
But I need to be able to sync my email contacts from thunderbird (or another email client if I need to switch), and my gmail contacts. Then it can go cross platform to my phone as well. This was seamless when gcontactsync was working, but that is no longer available (and I don’t really remember what the permissions for that was).

Any ideas on the best way to sync google contacts and thunderbird contacts? or google contacts with another email program that can handle multiple accounts? I haven’t tried kmail in ages, and I am hesitant to go back to it on tumbleweed because I really prefer something light weight.

2

This has made me review my permissions on other add-ons I have installed with thunderbird, and now I am a little concerned.

The mail merge add-on, the identity chooser add-on, and the bi-directional provider for google calendar all require this same level of permissions. Those are 3 exceedingly useful add-ons.

Is it possible these add-ons are really that dangerous? Are we trusting the security of our computers to the general good-will to someone we don’t know who has written the code for these add-ons?

Or instead is this description by mozilla a bit overblown, and these apps can’t actually read all of our email passwords and can’t actually access anything on our computer?