Thunderbird won't download email messages from Yahoo (formerly Cox) account
After returning from a 6 day vacation, my wife attempted to download email from her Yahoo email account. There are nearly 200 messages that have piled up but they aren't moving. I've uninstalled and re-installed TB. I've uninstalled and reinstalled the app password in Yahoo. There is no problem with accessing the email via any web browser. I spent 49 minutes on a tech support call with Yahoo and they have said the problem is with TB because they repeated the same steps I have. I checked firewall settings and the only antivirus program on the computer is Malware Bytes and it's not running in the background. The version of TB is the most recent as of yesterday. I don't see any sketchy looking emails in the web version of Yahoo Mail when it's opened. It's set up as a POP3 account and has been since Cox Internet gave their email over to Yahoo. I'd appreciate any assistance in resolving this because it's currently above my pay grade and tech support at Yahoo.
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All Replies (4)
How do you have Yahoo set to authenticate? See <Account Settings | (the account in question) | Server Settings>. If Oauth2, you don't use an app password, just use your normal Yahoo password when prompted. You must have Cookies allowed in Thunderbird for this to work. See <Settings | Privacy & Security | Web content | Accept cookies from sites>.
I think Yahoo may still accept the old, less-secure "normal password" method, which does require an app password.
If you have more than one Yahoo account set up in Thunderbird, you may have to make a couple more tweaks. They are described here, but if you need help with that let us know.
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/thunderbird-and-yahoo
(Malwarebyes may still be a problem, and it is probably IS running in the background)
I tried the above suggestions and switched to OAuth2. That didn't work. I tried just the password option and got an app password. That didn't work either. I checked and it accepts cookies. All I seem to get in regards to progress is showing at the bottom that TB has 240 emails and tries to download one of 240 and the program times out before downloading a single email.
Did it happen exactly on a version change? Coming from which version? (version history at Help > Troubleshooting Information > Show update history?
Yes. There was an update that occurred on 27 Aug 2026 and the email stopped flowing to TB. There have been two updates since. As previously mentioned, Yahoo tech support tried to remotely repair whatever the problem was and worked with me for over 45 minutes on a tech support call.
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