Thunderbird & IMAP Authentication

I am playing around with Thunderbird trying to get it to work and hit a brick wall....maybe some of you guys have run into this and know the fix.  I am trying to get GMAIL to work with IMAP.  Whichever of my GMAIL accounts I try to setup, it fails authenticaion using IMAp but works if I use POP.  I have POP and IMAP enabled in GMAIL, so I must be missing something in the setting or need to have a specific configuration.  I am using a portable vrsion of the latest Thunderbird and even dug up a version 10 that worked once and does not work now.

 

Any ideas?

jeroen's picture
Tr3b's picture

Yeah I have been all over those pages jeron.  I am missing somethign.  Downloading a fresh install of TB and just trying to get one GMAIL account fails.  I tried manipulating settings, so I must be missing something.  POP3 works, but not IMAP.

jeroen's picture
Tr3b's picture

Yes

I have Thunderbird 52.6.0 (32bit) set up with my accounts and just re-added a gmail account as an IMAP account. I only had to put in address, pwd, and IMAP was default... (already have gmail set for less security) ...after the IMAP selection, it took me to a gmail sign-in screen, which I did, and then it verified my previous entries, and added the account in TB. Works. (don't have 2-factor set, tho)

 

Tr3b's picture

Can you show me a screenshot of your setup...info removed of course.  I want to see how it compares to mine.

Generic process of adding gmail account to Thunderbird...
(with Server Settings)
http://oi68.tinypic.com/126af6g.jpg

Tr3b's picture

I can never get pass this screen:

https://i.imgur.com/iPK1jgs.jpg

Well, if it was me... first thing I'd do is go to a browser, a new tab, go to gmail.com, (log out of anything necessary)... and then login with that account username and password... to make overly sure I had it right.  And... I would triple-check the allowed apps and less secure sign-in... because when I was testing IMAP setup, I clicked Jeroen's link to less secure access, and it took me to my main account instead of the account I was testing IMAP setup with.   So you ought to click your, uh, problem- account picture, click My Account, click "Signing in to Google"... then scroll down and you should see both settings... app access, and less secure.  Perhaps app access for TB won't be there until you get a succesful account set up in TB, I'm not sure.

Did you get the gmail sign-in screens as I showed in the picture I posted?

Then, in TB, I'd go to Tools, Accounts, find that account (especially if it's listed more than once somehow), make sure it is selected/highlighted, and then in Account actions, click Remove account (I would BE SURE to select 'Remove message data' also, before you click the final Remove button).

Then go to TB Tools, OPTIONS, Privacy tab, Show cookies, and you can type a few letters of the account name and then select all the resulting cookies and click Remove Selected... OR ...just Remove ALL cookies. I can do that to my accounts and doesn't cause me any problem anyway.

Then go to the Advanced option, then Network and Disk Space tab, and clear the 'Disk space' cache, until it says zero.

Then go to the Security option, Passwords tab, Saved Passwords... and hunt for ALL the saved passwords for that particular account.  I found a half dozen saved passwords for the one account I have been fussing with to check this setup procedure. It got so I could enter a total junk password for setting up the account under IMAP and TB would still go get my email for the account... probably because it was grabbing the first saved password.  Anyway... you may not have any saved, but check anyway (keep going back into Saved passwords until you get to the bottom) and clear all relevant saved passwords.  Perhaps a bad one got saved.  Anyway, just being thorough.

And TB is not being blocked by security software, right?
Are you using 2-step for that account... so maybe TB needs a code?

Then close TB... and you can try, try again.   
Let us know...

I found the following link of interest... 

I expect you don't need it but it provides a little context for others who might read this topic...

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1201406

Tr3b's picture

I will try all your steps/suggestions today.  One thing I have not done, is log out of the account via my browser, but I will try that....even though I am using portable versions.  I will recreate on another laptop.