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Google accounts won't authenticate

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After a few years of not using Thunderbird, someone at FOSDEM convinced me to give it another go but now I'm running into trouble adding some of my accounts. I have 5 different gmail addresses, two gmail and three on my own domains that are hosted by gmail. I managed to add the two gmail addresses without a problem but the three email addresses that are on my domains won't authenticate. When I added the gmail addresses a window popped up asking me to allow Thunderbird but with my domain addresses it does not. I guess it has to be a setting in google admin for my domains but I have no idea what it is called, what to look for or where to find it.

If anyone can give me some guidance it would be highly appreciated.

Many thanks.

After a few years of not using Thunderbird, someone at FOSDEM convinced me to give it another go but now I'm running into trouble adding some of my accounts. I have 5 different gmail addresses, two gmail and three on my own domains that are hosted by gmail. I managed to add the two gmail addresses without a problem but the three email addresses that are on my domains won't authenticate. When I added the gmail addresses a window popped up asking me to allow Thunderbird but with my domain addresses it does not. I guess it has to be a setting in google admin for my domains but I have no idea what it is called, what to look for or where to find it. If anyone can give me some guidance it would be highly appreciated. Many thanks.

Chosen solution

Oh! I just managed to get it working. What happens is that when I add the new address Thunderbird does its auto detection and comes back saying "Configuration found at email provider". But, if I then click "Done" it goes of trying to do stuff and then eventually comes back saying something is wrong. Thunderbird automatically sets the imap and smtp servers to mail.jannetta.com

I then went and looked at the manual configuration. Oauth is not available as an option. But when I changed the servers to imap.gmail.com and smtp.gmail.com then Oauth did become available and then it authenticates.

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All Replies (5)

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Hi, Thanks for giving it another try. I convinced a lot of people there to try it out, maybe it was me :)

Can you check if the e-mails you are using with google services has Oauth enabled: https://www.googlecloudcommunity.com/gc/General-Misc-Q-A/How-to-add-an-alternative-user-support-email-to-OAuth-consent/m-p/483884#M515

Can you connect via IMAP/POP with one of them - this could be a way to connects well.

Is there any error you see?

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Hiya I don't think it was you but I did attend and very much enjoyed your talk :-D

I was trying to connect using IMAP/POP - that is the default when you add a new email account. I'm not making any sense of Oauth and I can't see any option for that in the Thunderbird configuration either.

I'm lost ...

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Oauth is only available for certain selected domains. It actually has to be set up on a per provider basis. So if your servers are not gmail ones, as in smtp.gmail.com, then oauth will not be available to you. You may be able to use application password, or even normal passwords. I guess it will depend on what the domain is set up to accept. As I do not have google domains I really can not comment on what you can set up and what you can not.

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My servers are gmail ones. As I said, I my own domains are hosted on google mail. What happens is that my normal gmail account eg. myaccount@gmail.com authenticates fine but myaccount@jannetta.com won't authenticate. If there is something that I have to do as administrator of the domain, I'll do it but I can't figure out what I'm supposed to do and where to find it. All of this is for IMAP/Pop

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Seçilmiş Həll

Oh! I just managed to get it working. What happens is that when I add the new address Thunderbird does its auto detection and comes back saying "Configuration found at email provider". But, if I then click "Done" it goes of trying to do stuff and then eventually comes back saying something is wrong. Thunderbird automatically sets the imap and smtp servers to mail.jannetta.com

I then went and looked at the manual configuration. Oauth is not available as an option. But when I changed the servers to imap.gmail.com and smtp.gmail.com then Oauth did become available and then it authenticates.

Modified by Jannetta Steyn