No matter what, you do need a password to access your mail and to send mail. And it's a password you set at some point, even if you can't remember it.

The master password isn't related to your account password, it is used to protect your account password(s).

You can lookup passwords Thunderbird has remembered:

AppMenu button -> Options ->Security -> Passwords -> Saved Passwords -> Show Passwords

Use the remembered password and verify it using webmail. Report back.

All email accounts have passwords. You have just had Thunderbird entering it for you for so long you do not remember it.

To see what you have saved in Thunderbird go to Tools-Options-Security-Passwords-Saved Passwords

No Menu Bar with Tools? Press the alt key or F10 to make it appear.

There are other things that can cause the password error but before you dig into those you need to know that you have a working password. I suggest that you go to your email providers web mail page and reset your password to something that you can remember. Then go back to the Thunderbird entry I described above and remove the saved passwords there. Close Thunderbird and the next time Thunderbird needs a password you will be asked for it. Enter the new password and click the box for Thunderbird to remember it.

I know what the password WAS. I had it saved on a list from one of the previous people that worked in this office. Somehow it got reset, but I have no idea what is was reset to. When I access the Passwords tab and click on Saved Passwords, there is nothing in there. I thought Thunderbird was our email provider. That's why I came here to Mozilla. But when I got to Thunderbird's page to get support, it redirects me here.

This is the correct site for Thunderbird support. However, Mozilla isn't your email provider.

You'll need to contact your email provider and check with them for password reset options for your account.

Thunderbird is email client software not an email provider.

Hello everybody, TB irratically keeps asking for a password to access email account. Sometimes the pasword works, other times it doesn't. I go to tools, but there is no options, or passwords or saved passwords.

How do gain access to saved passwords? How do I change the password to use TB, not the master password? Pressing alt or F10 doesn't work either. O/S Linux 13.10

Thanks for your help

How to gain access to stored passwords has already been mentioned in this thread.

It would make more sense to raise your own thread for your problem.

My passwords are not being remembered. I changed my passwords at my yahoo account 3 days ago, BECAUSE TB kept asking me to sign in. It was still happening. Having read this thread, I just deleted the 3 listed in Options/security. Rebooted TB, was asked for passwords. Did that. Checked remember them. Now all four are listed (imap and stmp-2 for each). But still TB keeps asking me for passwords, and tells me they failed. When I changed the passwords on my iPad and iPhone, they worked fine. So what next?