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Thunderbird and Gmail incompatibility

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  • Last reply by Matt

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To work with Thunderbird, gmail requires that you permit less secure access. I had it set up that way but about a week ago I got an alert about a possible security problem. I was advised to turn off "allow less secure access". I had forgotten that I needed that on for Thunderbird to work with gmail. I was advised to change my password for the server and I did. For a while I was receiving messages from gmail in Thunderbird, but that stopped after a day or so. I was never able to send messages using gmail. They ask for my password and I enter the new one but its not accepted. I went into Google and set "Allow less secure apps: ON". That didn't help. Google advised me go to "https://accounts.google.com/b/0/DisplayUnlockCaptcha". When I do I get a message "Sorry, we are unable to handle your request at this time, please try again later". They show a drawing of a robot that is taking itself apart.

I am able to send email from another account, but kept getting the request for password, so I finally deleted gmail from my Thunderbird account. I had a Yahoo account which I hadn't been using so I attempted to add that to Thunderbird. Yahoo advised me that I could use "less secure access" as a temporary measure but they would continue to bug me to fix the problem some other way.

I am now set up at the gmail web portal to forward all the incoming mail to another account. It is nice to again see my email in Thunderbird, but I consider this a temporary arrangement.

Does Thunderbird have any plans to provide secure access? Is there another email provider that permits access from Thunderbird without a special non-recommended setting?

Should I make an attempt to re-install gmail in Thunderbird?

To work with Thunderbird, gmail requires that you permit less secure access. I had it set up that way but about a week ago I got an alert about a possible security problem. I was advised to turn off "allow less secure access". I had forgotten that I needed that on for Thunderbird to work with gmail. I was advised to change my password for the server and I did. For a while I was receiving messages from gmail in Thunderbird, but that stopped after a day or so. I was never able to send messages using gmail. They ask for my password and I enter the new one but its not accepted. I went into Google and set "Allow less secure apps: ON". That didn't help. Google advised me go to "https://accounts.google.com/b/0/DisplayUnlockCaptcha". When I do I get a message "Sorry, we are unable to handle your request at this time, please try again later". They show a drawing of a robot that is taking itself apart. I am able to send email from another account, but kept getting the request for password, so I finally deleted gmail from my Thunderbird account. I had a Yahoo account which I hadn't been using so I attempted to add that to Thunderbird. Yahoo advised me that I could use "less secure access" as a temporary measure but they would continue to bug me to fix the problem some other way. I am now set up at the gmail web portal to forward all the incoming mail to another account. It is nice to again see my email in Thunderbird, but I consider this a temporary arrangement. Does Thunderbird have any plans to provide secure access? Is there another email provider that permits access from Thunderbird without a special non-recommended setting? Should I make an attempt to re-install gmail in Thunderbird?
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Does Thunderbird have any plans to provide secure access?

The 'allow less secure app' setting is Google speak for using their webmail service. Using traditional user ID/password to access your mail with a 3rd-party email client like Thunderbird is not less secure when it's over TLS and you do have a strong password.

Thunderbird supports Oauth2 authentication for Google IMAP and SMTP since quite a while. This is considered 'secure' by Google, and doesn't require you to 'allow less secure apps'.

So you'd need to set up your account as IMAP. The same goes for Yahoo as of Thunderbird 60.

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I understood that with IMAP it is not possible to download transactions from more than one account into the same Thunderbird inbox. Is that still true? Could I avoid that problem by for example forwarding the other account transactions to gmail so they all show up in the gmail inbox?

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lstallard said

I understood that with IMAP it is not possible to download transactions from more than one account into the same Thunderbird inbox. Is that still true? Could I avoid that problem by for example forwarding the other account transactions to gmail so they all show up in the gmail inbox?

You might want to look at the :unified view of folders in the folder pane. It uses virtual folders to do what can not be done with "real" folders, offer a single inbox showing mail from multiple account inboxes in a single combined view.

See https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1061509 and https://www.lifewire.com/read-emails-unified-inbox-thunderbird-1173101 (two presentations of the same information.)