Forum der Gemeinschaft Thunderbird

Hello,

I am requesting assistance with a persistent issue in Thunderbird involving a Google Workspace (Gmail) account for my domain, dantanas.com.

Incoming IMAP works correctly. However, outgoing SMTP authentication fails every time.

Symptoms

The Google OAuth login window never appears when Thunderbird attempts to authenticate SMTP.

Sending mail produces the error: “Unable to authenticate to Outgoing server (SMTP). Please check the password and verify the authentication method.”

IMAP works normally, but SMTP never prompts for OAuth authentication.

Thunderbird also does not allow me to have a Junk/Spam folder for this account — the option appears disabled or unavailable.

Current configuration Thunderbird is using

SMTP Server: smtp.gmail.com Port: 465 or 587 Security: SSL/TLS or STARTTLS Authentication: OAuth2 User: max@dantanas.com

IMAP Server: imap.gmail.com Port: 993 Security: SSL/TLS Authentication: OAuth2

What I have already done

Verified DNS MX and DKIM records on the domain (email receiving works).

Confirmed I can log in to the account in a browser with no issues.

Tried both port 465 and 587.

Removed and re-added SMTP servers in Thunderbird.

Forced Thunderbird to attempt OAuth2 authentication, but the OAuth window never appears.

Tested other clients, which authenticate correctly — suggesting the issue is specific to Thunderbird.

Expected behavior

Thunderbird should open a Google OAuth browser window to authenticate SMTP. This never occurs, which prevents SMTP from working entirely.

Request

Could you please advise:

Why Thunderbird does not open the Google OAuth authentication window for SMTP?

Whether there is a known issue affecting Google Workspace OAuth in Thunderbird?

How to reset or repair Thunderbird’s OAuth behavior?

Why Thunderbird does not allow the creation or use of a Junk/Spam folder for this account?

Any guidance would be appreciated. I’ve spent considerable time troubleshooting, and resolving the OAuth prompt issue is essential for SMTP functionality.

Thank you, Max Makowski max@dantanas.com

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Hi Everyone,

I am very excited about the new PDF signature feature in Thunderbird, awesome to not have to do this externally.

However, I am still trying to find a way to streamline a common workflow for me: I get a an email with pdfs attached where I need to insert signatures in a few places and send this back. My current workflow is the following: i open each pdf attachment, add the signature, save it to a file, and then open the email reply and reattach the correct files and all of them. It is this indirection via files that actually created the biggest headache for me, as it's a bit too easy to mess up here.

I also tried going via the "reply with attachments" extension, to have the reply email with all attachments already, but there seems to be no way to then edit them in thunderbird.

Am I missing something obvious for how to do this? Given that I am surely not the only one doing this, I am hoping someone has already figured this one out?

Antoine

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Hi,

we use Thunderbird for several business e‑mail accounts (for example info@… and similar), all configured as IMAP, and the same mailboxes are used by multiple people on several computers. Our mail server hostname is nickel.studio4web (Studio4web hosting).

We have noticed the following strange behaviour of messages (usually customer orders):

A new message arrives normally in the “Inbox” folder.

After some time, for example the next day, the same message also appears in the “Trash” folder, but it is still visible in “Inbox” at the same time.

We checked the headers; the Message‑ID field is exactly the same in both Inbox and Trash, so it looks like one and the same mail that exists in two folders at once.

In Thunderbird Server Settings we configured the delete behaviour so that messages are either moved to Trash or removed immediately (we tested both options), and after that we ran Compact on both the Inbox and Trash folders. However, some messages still remain simultaneously in Inbox and Trash.

We know that other team members open the same accounts in other clients / on mobile phones or in webmail, but we are not sure whether that alone can explain this double appearance of the same message (Inbox + Trash).

For example, two order emails from 03.12. were in Inbox only on that day, and today we see them also in Trash, while they are still in Inbox. No one remembers explicitly deleting them.

Questions:

Is this behaviour normal for IMAP in Thunderbird, or does it indicate some bug or wrong configuration?

Is there a way to prevent a single message from being present in both “Inbox” and “Trash” at the same time (so that it is either only in Inbox or only in Trash)?

What else should we check in Thunderbird settings or on the mail server (filters, special IMAP options, automatic cleanup, server‑side rules, etc.) to avoid such “duplicate” messages?

Environment:

Thunderbird version: 140.5.0esr

Operating system: Windows 11 Pro

Mail server / provider: nickel.studio4web (Studio4web hosting)

Thanks in advance for any help and advice.

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