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Email access

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  • 1 has this problem
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  • Last reply by sfhowes

phil.samson
phil.samson
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I have 5 email accounts managed by Thunderbird. Following an issue with my desktop PC which was resolved by carrying out a system restore I found I can no longer access my Hotmail account through Thunderbird. The other 4 email accounts are unaffected. I can access it ok if I go directly onto Microsoft Outlook, but when attempting to open it in Thunderbird it won't accept the password.

AS I also have Thunderbird installed on my laptop which is also working ok I compared the settings of the Hotmail account. Everything is the same except the server settings: on the lap top the server type is imap-mai.outlook.com: Port 993 (default) but on the desk top they are pop-mail.outlook.com: Port 995 (default).

I tried changing the settings on the desk top to the same as the lap top, shut it down & re-started Thunderbird. The same error message came up:- an error occurred with pop3 mail server. On checking the settings they had reverted to pop. There doesn't appear to be any way of saving any changes to the settings and I'm not even sure changing the settings to imap will cure the problem.

I have 5 email accounts managed by Thunderbird. Following an issue with my desktop PC which was resolved by carrying out a system restore I found I can no longer access my Hotmail account through Thunderbird. The other 4 email accounts are unaffected. I can access it ok if I go directly onto Microsoft Outlook, but when attempting to open it in Thunderbird it won't accept the password. AS I also have Thunderbird installed on my laptop which is also working ok I compared the settings of the Hotmail account. Everything is the same except the server settings: on the lap top the server type is imap-mai.outlook.com: Port 993 (default) but on the desk top they are pop-mail.outlook.com: Port 995 (default). I tried changing the settings on the desk top to the same as the lap top, shut it down & re-started Thunderbird. The same error message came up:- ''an error occurred with pop3 mail server''. On checking the settings they had reverted to pop. There doesn't appear to be any way of saving any changes to the settings and I'm not even sure changing the settings to imap will cure the problem.

All Replies (1)

sfhowes
sfhowes
  • Top 10 Contributor
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You can't switch between POP and IMAP just by changing the server settings - you need to remove the initial account, after copying the existing mail to Local Folders, then add the account with the different-type account from File/New/Existing Mail Account.

http://kb.mozillazine.org/Convert_a_POP_account_to_a_IMAP_account

But as to why the original POP setup failed after the restore, there could be a few reasons. Since you access the account on multiple devices, it's recommended to set it up as IMAP on all devices: outlook.office365.com on 993, SSL/TLS, normal password; smtp.office365.com on 587, STARTTLS, normal password.