#!/bin/bash

KEY_PRIVATE="$HOME/.ssh/id_dsa"
KEY_PUBLIC="${KEY_PRIVATE}.pub"

if [ "$1" == "" ] ; then
   echo "Usage: $0 <[user@]server>"
   exit
fi

if [ ! -f "${KEY_PRIVATE}" ] ; then
   echo Creating the private and public keys.
   ssh-keygen -t dsa -f "${KEY_PRIVATE}" -N ''
fi

if [ -f "${KEY_PUBLIC}" ] ; then
   cat "${KEY_PUBLIC}" |
   ssh "${1}" "mkdir -p ~/.ssh ; cat >> .ssh/authorized_keys2 ; chmod -R go-rwx ~/.ssh"
else
   echo Unable to find "${KEY_PUBLIC}"
fi

Run this, enter your pass once, and then you’re free to ssh without entering a password.

Watch for line wraps in your browser, especially the ssh line.

Start out in Thunderbird, click Tools, Address Book. Once the Address Book pops up click Tools, Export. A save dialog should popup asking you to for a filename and folder. Look down by the save button, change the format dropdown from LDIF to CSV, name the file myExport.csv and click Save. The default of the home dir should be fine.

All of your T-Bird contacts are now in the CSV file, but GMail won’t appreciate the extra columns and lack of headers. We can fix that easily from the command line. Open a shell and change to the directory where you saved your CSV. Run the following command:

echo First Name,Last Name,Email Address > toImport.csv ; cat myExport.csv |cut -d”,” -f1,2,5 >>toImport.csv

Now head over to your gmail account and import the csv. The Import link is on the “Contacts” page near the top right.

GMail should report success once it’s done processing the file and tell you how many contacts it imported.

Or you can do it that hard way like this guy.

Or, waste a bunch of time reading how this guy did.