Join the AMA (Ask Me Anything) with the Firefox leadership team to celebrate Firefox 20th anniversary and discuss Firefox’s future on Mozilla Connect. Mark your calendar on Thursday, November 14, 18:00 - 20:00 UTC!

This site will have limited functionality while we undergo maintenance to improve your experience. If an article doesn't solve your issue and you want to ask a question, we have our support community waiting to help you at @FirefoxSupport on Twitter and/r/firefox on Reddit.

Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

OAuth2 and several Gmail accounts

more options

I have four Gmail accounts linked to Thunderbird and have just had the message from Google about OAuth2 starting in May.

I have read I need to change my server incoming and outgoing settings passwords to OAuth2 instead of normal password.

When I then try to send an email it asks for my Google password which I enter and all is okay. However when I try to use another email account on Thunderbird it again asks for the google password for this account and when I go back to the first email account it hasn't remembered my google password again.

Also to make it even more difficult it won't let you copy and paste the password into the google account.

Have I missed something here and it should remember each google password?

I have four Gmail accounts linked to Thunderbird and have just had the message from Google about OAuth2 starting in May. I have read I need to change my server incoming and outgoing settings passwords to OAuth2 instead of normal password. When I then try to send an email it asks for my Google password which I enter and all is okay. However when I try to use another email account on Thunderbird it again asks for the google password for this account and when I go back to the first email account it hasn't remembered my google password again. Also to make it even more difficult it won't let you copy and paste the password into the google account. Have I missed something here and it should remember each google password?

All Replies (8)

more options

does the process of entering the google credentials end successfully with Thunderbird being granted access? Or is it aborting, perhaps because you have not allowed cookies.

Note the update to V91.8 makes all the necessary changes to account settings to oauth. It does not however enable cookies if you have disabled them.

See https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/automatic-conversion-google-mail-accounts-oauth20

more options

After you've changed your accounts to OAuth2, delete all records of your Google Account passwords from Thunderbird's password vault (Saved Passwords). With OAuth2, your passwords are not stored by Tbird. Instead, an OAuth2 token (a long string of meaningless characters) is stored in the password field. That's what you should see after completing the OAuth2 process for each of your accounts. You have to do it twice, once for incoming and once for outgoing server. Also, you must allow cookies in Thunderbird's Preferences, otherwise it won't work.

more options

Thanks Matt & Stans, I seemed to have it working now, not 100% sure what I did, but went through all the settings again and seems to now remember my google passwords. I did already have cookies allowed so assume it wasn't that. I can see all the new OAuth2 token characters for each account but I haven't yet deleted all now unused passwords which I will do after taking a copy of them just in case.. Hopefully all will be okay, thanks again.

more options

But why is it so complicated ??? Why can't Mozilla find a solution with Google to make TB "safer" without all the nag and troubles ???

more options

kondoril said

But why is it so complicated ??? Why can't Mozilla find a solution with Google to make TB "safer" without all the nag and troubles ???

Why are you hijacking someone else's thread? Do you even need help with this? You can't have the same level of convenience and security.

more options

He posted it on top mine according to mozilla email to me see:

Re: Stans posted an answer to your question "Google warning"

more options

kondoril said

He posted it on top mine according to mozilla email to me see: Re: Stans posted an answer to your question "Google warning"

This thread's title is OAuth2 and several Gmail accounts.

more options

Stans said

After you've changed your accounts to OAuth2, delete all records of your Google Account passwords from Thunderbird's password vault (Saved Passwords).

Thanks, this did it for me. I was accepting cookies, but when trying to retrieve messages for the account, Thunderbird was just saying authentication failed or something like that (that error message could be improved.) Deleting all passwords for the account fixed things.