If You Use Thunderbird & Can No Longer Access Your Gmail Account, Here’s The Fix
Google’s changed Gmail requirements locked out Thunderbird users without an error message clearly telling them how to fix the problem
By David Grace (Amazon Page — David Grace Website)
Access Denied
Google has recently changed your ability to access your Gmail account from Thunderbird and Outlook.
If you use Thunderbird or some other “front end” to receive and send emails from and to your Gmail account, Thunderbird has probably been denied the ability to log-in to your Gmail account even though your password is correct and even though you can manually access your Gmail account at Gmail.com
Also, the access denied error message does not specifically say how to fix the problem, namely change Thunderbird’s Authentication Method setting from Normal Password to OAuth2 for both the incoming server and outgoing server (SMTP).
Thank you very much, Google, NOT!
Google Has Changed The Required Authentication Method
Without any direct notice to its Outook and Thunderbird users Gmail has changed the required Authentication Method from Normal Password to OAuth2
Unless you make a similar change to your Thunderbird Account Settings, Thunderbird will no longer be able to either retrieve emails from your Gmail account or send emails to third parties via your Gmail account.
How To Change Your Thunderbird Account Settings
Here is how you can fix this problem:
POP/IMap Settings
In Thunderbird’s main screen, click Tools –> Account Settings
Find your Gmail account, e.g. MyName@Gmail.com on the list of your email accounts on the left side of the Thunderbird Account Settings screen
Beneath the MyName@Gmail.com account name is the heading:
Server Settings
Click on Server Settings
In the right window you can now see:
Security Settings
Connection Security
Authentication Method
Using the drop-down lists under each item, set Connection Security to SSL/TLS and set Authentication Method to OAuth2
Outgoing Server Settings
Go back to the left window and scroll down all the way to the bottom. The last item will be:
Outgoing Server (SMTP)
Click on that.
In the right hand window, click on the name of your Gmail account, e.g. MyName@Gmail.com
The window at the bottom of the right hand screen will have the heading:
Details of selected server
for your MyName@Gmail.com account.
That window will show Authentication Method
If the Authentication Method for MyName@Gmail.com is not OAuth2, then click the Edit button on the upper right side of the screen and then in the edit screen change the Authentication Method to OAuth2 then click the OK button.
Accept Cookies Setting
Next, in Thunderbird go to Tools –> Preferences –> Privacy & Security –> Web Content –> Accept Cookies From Sites and make sure Tbird does accept cookies
You should now be able to use Tbird to both send and receive emails to and from your Gmail account in the same way that you could before Google sabotaged your access via Thunderbird.
Thank you so much Google for helping us!
— David Grace (Amazon Page — David Grace Website)
