How I made x-notifier work for me

I have 2 yahoo, 2 outlook, 4 gmail accounts with 2FA. All of them use sms/call or email for 2nd password. In addition they may use some kind of app to generate a second password. With yahoo, you need to install yahoo mail app on your phone (apparently this mobile app authorizes you with one tap). Gmail presents you a qr code, which you can use to match your account to you 2FA app (e.g. google authenticator or authy or some other app). it's usually time based, i.e. doesn't work if time settings in your phone are not correct. Outlook does use google authenticator if correctly set up, but prefers an app called "microsoft account" for android devices. this app can authorize you with one tap or it can generate 2nd passwords if required.

if I suddenly become paranoid about security, I may clear my browser's cache, history and cookies. this will sign me out of anything I've signed in, including xnotifier's sessions. this will ask for new 2FA passwords (after sign-in) for every applicable account.

if I suddenly become paranoid about the security of a particular account, I may go to account preferences page for that account (https://myaccount.google.com/, https://account.microsoft.com/privacy, https://login.yahoo.com/account/personalinfo) and sign myself out of any one session or all sessions, which may also include mobile browsers and apps and games. this will ask for new 2FA passwords if I sign in again. the account preferences pages usually display last login timestamps and location info for sessions and also the time any specific app-password was last used (app passwords I did generate for xnotifier were never used) (gmail and yahoo can revoke app passwords one by one, outlook can only revoke all of them).

(all these are methods to secure your account without changing your password. yahoo, gmail or outlook may require you to change your password/review sign-in attempts/validate yourself even if 2FA is turned off, if sign-in attempts seem to be originating from unknown locations, regardless of valid cookies or known browsers.)

these changes will expire old cookies and generate new ones, but this would not pose any problem if not for 2FA because passwords are already saved in xnotifier. yet new cookies cannot be generated if browsers/sessions cannot be validated through 2FA, which xnotifier sometimes fails to acknowledge in its user-interface. it seems one cannot ask for more security and still check one's emails without much hassle.

after disabling 2FA, checking email with xnotifier, enabling 2FA in my accounts, all of them can check and show new email. 2 most used accounts, 1 gmail and 1 outlook still had glitches (suddenly stopped working after a few checks). outlook was solved with using microsoft account instead of google authenticator. microsoft account does not give a numeric 2nd password to type in (unless you ask for it), you just a tap on a notification in your android phone. after 1-2 authorizations, xnotifier checks and shows inbox count without needing 2FA. the gmail account still asks for 2FA password with every browser restart or any change (like adding an account) in xnotifier settings that forces every account to check again. I think I can live with this much hassle.

"use multiple login" and "keep session for links" need to be checked and stay checked in settings. when I experimented with combinations of them on or off, some accounts stopped working when unchecked and did not work again even if changed to checked again.

even if the xnotifier shows an account as working/signed-in, clicking on the account may not take you directly to your email, but require you sign-in again. sometimes it's the other way around, the account is greyed out, the number of emails is not shown, but clicking on it will take you to your email, no password asked (in such cases, clicking on the account to check email, signing out, signing in again will fix the greyed out account and show the number of emails). if auto-login default account is checked, xnotifier may take you to the default account instead of the one you clicked. it's confusing, at best.

manually checking an account in a non-xnotifier generated tab and seeing if you are directed to any arbitrary pages before you are taken to you email (as referenced for yahoo below) is worthwhile if you're sure you haven't been messing with cookies yet xnotifier suddenly stops working for a particular account.

FAQ says multiple login has xnotifier copy cookies to browser. I wonder if xnotifier can copy cookies from browser to itself. it could potentially solve many problems we're having.