Save Thunderbird contacts to CSV

I want my Thunderbird address book out as a CSV, for a spreadsheet and to import elsewhere, but the export options and the resulting columns confuse me.

What is the clean way to get a usable CSV?

The export itself is quick, and the confusion is worth clearing because the format choice and one column detail decide whether the CSV is usable or a mess:

1

Open the Address Book from the main toolbar, and select the specific address book in the left pane, Personal Address Book usually, since exporting exports the selected book rather than all of them, the first point of confusion when contacts seem missing from the output.

2

Export via the address book menu or Tools, Export and in the save dialog choose the format from the file type dropdown: comma separated for a standard CSV or the Unicode comma separated variant when your contacts include accented names or non Latin scripts, the choice that prevents mangled characters in the output.

3

Open the resulting CSV in a spreadsheet to check the columns: Thunderbird exports many fields with its own header names, and for importing elsewhere you may map or trim these, keeping First Name, Last Name, the email and phone columns and dropping the many blank Thunderbird specific fields most contacts never filled.

4

For a cleaner starting point when the destination is a specific application, exporting as vCard instead often maps with less column fuss on the import side, worth choosing when CSV is a means to an import rather than the spreadsheet being the actual goal.

The mailing lists caveat carries here as in every Thunderbird contacts export: lists flatten to their member contacts in the CSV, the groupings themselves not surviving as a column, needing recreation as groups or labels in the destination, a quick task for the few lists most people keep and covered from the Gmail side in the export contacts thread linked alongside.

Selecting the right address book first was my whole problem, I had been exporting an empty Collected book. Unicode CSV kept my accented names clean and I trimmed the blank columns in the spreadsheet. vCard noted for when I actually import rather than just wanting the sheet.