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Accessing Gmail

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  • Last reply by Stans

firefox2338
firefox2338
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I used to have no problem accessing gmail until they stopped allowing less secure app access. Every since then whenever I tried to access my gmail accounts with Thunderbird I get the message "Authentication failure while connecting to server imap.gmail.com". I have done research and made sure I have all the correct settings regarding OAuth2 and cookies and whatever in both Gmail and Thunderbird. But I have never been able to get it to work.

Then suddenly out of the blue I get this login screen for Google that opens in a new Thunderbird window that I haven't seen before. I mean I hadn't even upgraded or restarted Thunderbird for a very long time and it's just been opened in the background working away. So who knows what happened to make that appear. In any case, after I logged into my Google account using that Thunderbird window, and went through the million security notifications from Google about it, I was actually able to access my Gmail account at last.

The trouble now is that I have several Gmail accounts. And I can only access one this way. The others still give me that authentication error. I have checked to make sure that all account settings are exactly the same, and they are.

What can I do to get my other Gmail accounts working in Thunderbird? Is there anyway I can trigger Thunderbird into giving me that Google login windows for my other accounts?

I used to have no problem accessing gmail until they stopped allowing less secure app access. Every since then whenever I tried to access my gmail accounts with Thunderbird I get the message "Authentication failure while connecting to server imap.gmail.com". I have done research and made sure I have all the correct settings regarding OAuth2 and cookies and whatever in both Gmail and Thunderbird. But I have never been able to get it to work. Then suddenly out of the blue I get this login screen for Google that opens in a new Thunderbird window that I haven't seen before. I mean I hadn't even upgraded or restarted Thunderbird for a very long time and it's just been opened in the background working away. So who knows what happened to make that appear. In any case, after I logged into my Google account using that Thunderbird window, and went through the million security notifications from Google about it, I was actually able to access my Gmail account at last. The trouble now is that I have several Gmail accounts. And I can only access one this way. The others still give me that authentication error. I have checked to make sure that all account settings are exactly the same, and they are. What can I do to get my other Gmail accounts working in Thunderbird? Is there anyway I can trigger Thunderbird into giving me that Google login windows for my other accounts?

Chosen solution

After changing authentication method to OAuth2 for all Gmail accounts, make sure to delete ALL passwords for those accounts from Thunderbird's password vault. I had to do this for some accounts, as Thunderbird would try to use the stored password instead of the stored OAuth2 token (also stored in the same password vault), which wouldn't work with OAuth2 authentication. Refer to Password Manager - Remember, delete and change passwords in Thunderbird for details. After that, you have to restart Thunderbird.

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Stans
Stans
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Chosen Solution

After changing authentication method to OAuth2 for all Gmail accounts, make sure to delete ALL passwords for those accounts from Thunderbird's password vault. I had to do this for some accounts, as Thunderbird would try to use the stored password instead of the stored OAuth2 token (also stored in the same password vault), which wouldn't work with OAuth2 authentication. Refer to Password Manager - Remember, delete and change passwords in Thunderbird for details. After that, you have to restart Thunderbird.