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I setup Mozilla Thunderbird for all my Gmail accounts. Now I wanted all my Gmail contacts in Thunderbird, did some googling on the subject and task accomplished in a few minutes.
This is how it is done, [Check the images for better understanding. I've highlighted with red dots the places you have to look for].

Export the Gmail contacts.

• Log in to your Gmail account and click Contacts on the left side above the Labels.
• Your could see your contacts arranged into different groups like ‘Family’, ‘Friends’, ‘Co-workers’, ‘All Contacts’ etc.
• Click Export located at the right top corner of the page.
• In the next page, Select the Contact Group you wish to export from the drop down list. You can also choose ‘All contacts’.
• Select ‘Outlook’s CSV’ as the format to export and click the Export button.
• Download the file (.csv) to the desktop.

Import the downloaded CSV file into Thunderbird.

• Open Thunderbird. And click on Tools > Import..
• Select Address Books and click Next.
• Select Text File (LDIF, csv, txt) and Click Next
• Browse to the .csv file you just downloaded and click Open. [You may need to change the File type to Comma Separated to see the file in the dialogue box]

In the next step you will need to match the fields of your Thunderbird Address book, to the corresponding fields in your .csv file. For example, the field First Name in the Address book should point to the same field First Name in the .csv file.

To do this, select the first field which you would like to keep and use the Move UP and Move Down button to position it to the correct place. Do the other fields similarly.

I matched the only 4 fields like this, First Name->First Name, Last Name -> Last name, Display Name -> Name, and Primary Email -> Email Address. Check the picture to get a better idea.

Once fields are matched, Click Ok and all of the contacts will be imported. You will be taken to the addressbook where you can see the results.