Cannot retrieve IMAP mail from Gmail using Thunderbird
My overall goal is to switch over from POP3 to IMAP without losing my previous messages. So I just created in Thunderbird an IMAP version of my POP3 Gmail account. I have been led to believe this is permitted and, clearly I don't want to wipe out my POP3 account (and all of its messages on my local system) until I know the IMAP works. So now I have two "accounts" defined in Thunderbird with the same email address: one is pointing to Gmail POP3 and one to Gmail IMAP. Now, any attempt to retrieve mail from IMAP results in the error "the mail server for account <xxxx>@gmail.com responded : Unknown command <gibberish string>". (See error image attached.) The gibberish string is different each time I try it.
I have enabled IMAP in my Gmail account config.
I have searched the web for similar problems and none of the proposed solutions work for me.
Other data: using latest Thunderbird on Windows 10. Any clues?
My overall goal is to switch over from POP3 to IMAP without losing my previous messages. So I just created in Thunderbird an IMAP version of my POP3 Gmail account. I have been led to believe this is permitted and, clearly I don't want to wipe out my POP3 account (and all of its messages on my local system) until I know the IMAP works. So now I have two "accounts" defined in Thunderbird with the same email address: one is pointing to Gmail POP3 and one to Gmail IMAP. Now, any attempt to retrieve mail from IMAP results in the error "the mail server for account <xxxx>@gmail.com responded : Unknown command <gibberish string>". (See error image attached.) The gibberish string is different each time I try it.
I have enabled IMAP in my Gmail account config.
I have searched the web for similar problems and none of the proposed solutions work for me.
Other data: using latest Thunderbird on Windows 10. Any clues?
All Replies (4)
Looks like the image didn't make it into my question. I'll try again.
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Troubleshooting (truncated to 10k characters):
Application Basics
Name: Thunderbird Version: 52.4.0 User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; WOW64; rv:52.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/52.4.0 Profile Folder: Open Folder
(Local drive) Application Build ID: 20171004092449 Enabled Plugins: about:plugins Build Configuration: about:buildconfig Memory Use: about:memory Profiles: about:profiles
Mail and News Accounts
account1:
INCOMING: account1, , (none) Local Folders, plain, passwordCleartext
account4:
INCOMING: account4, , (pop3) pop.gmail.com:995, SSL, passwordCleartext
OUTGOING: , smtp.gmail.com:465, SSL, passwordCleartext, true
OUTGOING: , smtp.gmail.com:465, SSL, passwordCleartext, false
OUTGOING: , smtp.gmail.com:465, SSL, passwordCleartext, false
account6:
INCOMING: account6, , (pop3) pop.gmail.com:995, SSL, passwordCleartext
OUTGOING: , smtp.gmail.com:465, SSL, passwordCleartext, true
account9:
INCOMING: account9, , (imap) imap.gmail.com:993, SSL, OAuth2
OUTGOING: , smtp.gmail.com:465, SSL, passwordCleartext, true
Crash Reports https://crash-stats.mozilla.com/report/index/bp-5069e4b7-b971-4116-9149-baf170170722 (22/07/2017) https://crash-stats.mozilla.com/report/index/bp-34337d76-53a1-4b53-a63a-6c60f2170110 (11/01/2017) https://crash-stats.mozilla.com/report/index/bp-ab433662-db4c-42c4-be31-473fd2170110 (11/01/2017) https://crash-stats.mozilla.com/report/index/bp-63b73de2-4ad3-400d-ab13-96db12140726 (27/07/2014)
Extensions
gContactSync, 2.0.12, true, gContactSync@pirules.net
Google Search for Thunderbird, 1.0, true, gsearch@standard8.plus.com
ImportExportTools, 3.2.4.1, true, {3ed8cc52-86fc-4613-9026-c1ef969da4c3}
Lightning, 5.4.4, true, {e2fda1a4-762b-4020-b5ad-a41df1933103}
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mail.openMessageBehavior.version: 1
mail.winsearch.enable: true
mail.winsearch.firstRunDone: true
mail.winsearch.global_reindex_time: 1261614790
mailnews.database.global.datastore.id: ab70c48f-e248-4462-95e0-92db516b008
media.gmp.storage.version.observed: 1
network.cookie.prefsMigrated: true
network.predictor.cleaned-up: true
places.database.lastMaintenance: 1509079733
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plugin.importedState: true
plugins.update.notifyUser: true
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...
Your Gmail IMAP server settings look good. I'd also set the 'Authentication type' for the Gmail SMTP server to 'OAuth2'.
Try to start Windows in safe mode with networking enabled. - Win10 https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/12376/windows-10-start-your-pc-in-safe-mode
Still in Windows safe mode, start Thunderbird in safe mode. - https://support.mozilla.org/kb/safe-mode
Does the problem go away?