Over the weekend Thuderbird stopped allowing me to send emails and will not set up as IMAP.
There seems to be an incompatibility between Thunderbird and Comcast. I stopped being able to send emails from 2 different computers a few days ago. Comcast has gone to IMAP and I had POP3. When I deleted my TB email accounts and tried to re open them as IMAP, the connection was refused by the server. I've spent hours on the phone with Comcast, but there was no solution. I've switched to Outlook and it works fine as IMAP. I would like to use Thunderbird again. I have 10 years of important emails stored in the local folders so do not want to lose them. I think this is a problem between Thunderbird and Comcast, but no one owns the problem, except me. Is there a solution? Thanks, Larry Kapinos
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Thunderbird works very well with Comcast - I use it daily and have for years. And though I have always used IMAP, I haven't heard anything about them discontinuing POP3 access, and I doubt they would (but nothing's impossible.)
This page has their recommended settings. How do they compare with yours?
https://www.xfinity.com/support/articles/email-client-programs-with-xfinity-email
One thing that's not addressed there is that, sometime in the past year or so, they appear to have implemented OAuth2 as an available authentication method, and that's what I've been using lately. But I'm pretty sure they still accept the old, less-secure Normal Password method.
Here are my working Comcast settings (with OAuth2 authentication.) I have no way to test the POP3 settings, but I think they should work.)
IMAP (Incoming): Incoming Server Type: IMAP Mail Server Incoming Server Name: imap.comcast.net Port: 993 User Name: <my email address> Connection Security: SSL/TLS Authentication method: Normal Password OR OAuth2
POP3 (Incoming): Incoming Server Type: POP Mail Server Incoming Server Name: pop3.comcast.net Port: 995 User Name: <my email address> Connection Security: SSL/TLS Authentication method: Normal Password (or OAuth2?)
SMTP (Outgoing): SMTP Server Name: smtp.comcast.net Port: 465 Connection Security: SSL/TLS Authentication method: Normal Password OR OAuth2 User Name: <my email address>
Before you start messing around with server settings, especially if you have been using POP3, which means your archived messages exits ONLY on you local computer, I recommend that you make a safety backup of your entire Thunderbird Profile. If your saved messages are precious, you should consider doing this regularly.
Here's an article about how to find and backup your Profile. I recommend using the manual method, and avoid Thunderbird's Export tool.
Thank you Lin. I was able to copy the profile to Notepad. Comcast already did have the correct email setting all along. I tried again to establish email as IMAP. Same server refusal. I tried POP3 and it said error establishing account. But when I went to emails, the POP3 account was in fact established all my emails were there. I'm fine with that even though Comcast told me they only support IMAP.
Lin, Even though I can establish a Comcast POP3 account in TBird, I still can't send emails. Only receive. So at this point I will continue using Outlook. Will try again in the future.
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