why do email accounts have to be "android" (google) accounts?
Short version Why can't I set up an email account in Thunderbird for Android Beta (TFA-B) that is only known inside TFA-B and not part of the Google "accounts"?
Long version...
Context #1 - Windows On Windows, I have ONE login username. Once i have logged in, I use Thunderbird desktop to do email. I have 6 accounts, some of which are xxx@gmail.com, and some are yyy@anothercompany.com
When I configure Thunderbird with those accounts, only Thunderbird knows about those account - they are not part of Windows. I'm certain that MacOS works the same.
Context #2 - Android I have been using Gmail as my email app for quite a long time. I registered the phone with xxx@gmail.com so it appears in the Settings under "accounts". But when I configured Gmail with the other 5 email accounts, they are added in the "accounts" section. They become part of the environment, not just email addresses in Gmail.
As a result, every %^&* thing on Android is done in the context of any one of the email addresses. When I go to "Contacts", a bunch are in xxx@gmail.com, some are in yyy@gmail.com, some are in zzz@gmail.com. I never know where a new contact is going to end up. When I go to the Play store, it's the same thing - I have to choose one of the Google accounts. Same for Google News reader, Photos, etc. The list goes on and on. Everything is tied to an "account (email address).
I'm not really interested in hearing how this is a "good thing", e.g. you can have all of your business contacts tied to your business email address, and all of your personal contacts tied to your personal email address. That's a simplistic view of the world. My contacts are not split along business/personal lines - they are used for travel, personal, shopping, etc. But that doesn't mean I want to download from the Play store or read news or whatever using my "shopping" email address (account) or my "travel" email address.
I'm not asking you to explain or fix any of the above. It is what it is. It's just context for the remainder of this message.
Thunderbird for Android Beta (TFA-B) I've been using Thunderbird on Windows for the last ~20 years and it's fantastic. Today I saw several articles about Thunderbird for Android Beta, so I downloaded it. I thought "now this will be much better than gmail".
The first thing I did was delete all of my accounts from my phone except for the xxx@gmail.com account that ties it to Google. All of the email disappeared too, but that's ok (I won't go into details). So now my phone has only ONE Google account and I want to configure TFA-B with 5 other email addresses. So I did the following: (a) entered yyy@gmail.com (b) it recognized @gmail.com and configured all of the IMAP/SMTP stuff (c) then it said "We'll redirect you, to your email provider to sign in. You need to grant the app access to your email account" with a button that said "Sign up with Google" (d) when I clicked that button, it didn't prompt me for username/password to sign in. Instead it listed the following:
Signed in to Google as xxx@gmail.com - manage your Google Account - add account to device - sign out and turn off sync
None of the 3 choices were to sign into yyy@gmail.com as promised. (a) "manage" refers to the current xxx@gmail.com, so that's not it (b) "sign out and turn off sync" also refers to xxx@gmail.com (c) The only possible choice is "add account to device" and I don't want that! I just want to read email from yyy.com without it becoming entangled in the entire Google/Android system.
It does say "Google - sign in with your Google account" and asks for the email address, but then the only option is "Create account", which goes right into the usual Settings -> Accounts part of Android to create the account. I thought TFA-B was just going to ask me to sign in to yyy.com (the same as I would sign in to banking for example). But no, I have to create a Google/Android account. Maddening.
So this is not going to simplify things. Every email address I set up in TFA-B is going to be set up as a Google account at the Android "system" level, and they will all be choices in Contacts, Play Store, and several other places. That's not what I expected. I am SO disappointed. I know TFA-B will be good, but from this point of view, it's just as bad as Gmail.
I'm guessing there is no choice, e.g. you can't set up an email address in an application like TFA-B without setting it up as an Android "account".'
So now I have questions: 1. is it possible to set up an email address/account in TFA-B, without setting up an account in Google/Android? 2. if not, is this a restriction in Android, or are the developers just doing it that way so it works the same as Gmail? 3. why does Android have to do *everything* in the context of one of the email addresses that have been setup as formal "accounts"?
Thanks for listening.
All Replies (4)
No response at all. Nobody agrees? Nobody disagrees? Nobody knows? I'm disappointed.
I've created an account here for beta-testing thunderbird for android: https://thunderbird.topicbox.com/groups/android-beta/
But I don't really want to ask this question there, because it's not a beta question. I just need to undestand how this works and why.
To test out this "requirement" that all accounts in email must be "android accounts", I installed Outlook to test it out. It does the same thing - it wants to create an "android account".
This is ridiculous - why can't it work like Windows - email accounts are not part of the operating system - they are only part of the email application?
Thanks.
Hi
I can help a bit here, in that i have 4 accounts (well 3 really) working in TB-A and none are gmail-google based. Two are bespoke with my own URLs and one is Outlook I used the destop TB export to android tool and all moved without a problem. I use a Mac - but have windows experience as well (too many years, from DOS and pre windows 🤔)
Maybe better to do this via email to start then update here once resolved. Part cos using the fone to answer here and hate typing that much on it 😂 Antony
PS - the Export to Android QR is found under the Tools menu, not in settings, on a MAC anyway
An gyara daga Antony-Fox
What gives you the impression you can only add Gmail accounts?
I haven't read the very long version as I wasn't sure what was causing you to think such a thing but it's so simple, even my mum could do it.
All you need is a bona-fide (real) email account and know its password. I use three domains for my 19 accounts; outlook,com, gmail.com and my own business domain.
When you add an account, TBfA will firstly ask you for the email address. Simply type thusxemail address in the field shown and TBfA will scan the domain for a configuration file. If it finds one, and usually does very quickly, it will the either just tell you it's found one and says it's a known configuration (outlook, gmail and many other well known mail domains) and allows you to continue without intervention or, find an unjnown configuration, ask you if you trust it, then, once you confirm you do, progress as previously as if it were a known configuration.
From there, just follow the rest of the prompts to complete the setup, and voila, you can now progress to you next email account.
Sorry for rushing the last part, but it's 5.20am and I need to get to bed!
I thought I was being extremely clear in the long version, but perhaps not, especially if you don't read it. This is absolutely not about adding non-gmail accounts. It's also not about the difficulty of adding email accounts.
That is not the issue. The issue is that email accounts of all kinds are part of the Android operating system, and not part of the email application itself.
Example 1 - Windows and Thunderbird On Thunderbird, I add email accounts of all kinds - gmail, hotmail, etc. Those accounts are known ONLY to Thunderbird. You see them only in Thunderbird, you modify/configure them only in Thunderbird. Windows does not know anything about them? Why, because they are EMAIL accounts, not Windows accounts. That's the way it should be.
Example 2 - Android I currently use the gmail app, but I have downloaded and explored Outlook for Android, Thunderbird for Android too. They are all similar. It doesn't matter whether I set configure those apps with gmail, hotmail or any other email accounts. The accounts end up in the Android settings under "Accounts". In other words, adding an email account to an email application can NOT be done without adding the account to the list of Android Accounts. Email accounts should only be known to the email application - why are they part of the Android operating system?
Now you're going to ask me - who cares - that's the way it's done. But not so fast, there are repercussions to this. It means that EVERY GOOGLE APP works in the context of a specific email account, whether it be xxx@gmail.com or xxx@hotmail.com or any other email account. Of course, the email apps (gmail, outlook, thunderbird for android) all have a facility to choose an email account for which you want to view the messages. But look at the rest of the apps: - photos - news - calendar - contacts - phone - maps - play store
The list goes on and on. In the upper right corner (usually) of those apps, there is an indication of which EMAIL ACCOUNT is being used for the information being displayed. If you click on it, there is a choice of all of the other EMAIL ACCOUNTs. WHY!!! Why would I want to look at "maps" in the context of xxx@gmail.com as opposed to yyy@hotmail.com? This is MY device - when I download an app from the Play Store, why would I choose an email account?
I can understand that if you have personal@gmail.com and business@cnn.com (for example), that you would want to be able to go into the phone app and choose either personal@gmail.com or business@cnn.com to see one or the other groups of contacts. But that doesn't reflect more comment usage. In my case, I have email accounts that look like (these are all fictitious): travel@gmail.com joe@gmail.com - "me" mary@hotmail.com - "my wife" joemary@gmail.com - "us" forums@hotmail.com mywebsite@godaddy.com shopping@gmail.com ourcondo@outlook.com vehicles@gmail.com
Ok, you get the idea. You can bet that when I create a new contact, I am not going to waste time, associating it with one of those 10 email accounts. So what I end up with is all of the contacts being associated and spread over a dozen email accounts.
When I download Thunderbird for Android, should it be associated with vehicles@gmail.com or mywebsite@godaddy.com or joe@gmail.com Which of these EMAIL accounts should I choose before download an app? Does this make any sense at all?
When I'm looking at photos with the Photos app, should be in the context of EMAIL account vehicles@gmail.com or shopping@gmail.com or forums@gmail.com
It's completely ridiculous to have everything on Android associated with an EMAIL account.
But let me get back to the problem. Why are EMAIL ACCOUNTS part of the Android Operating System and propagated to all of the Android apps? It should be like Windows - you log in with one account and everything is tied to that one account. If you set up Thunderbird (or any other email client), only that application knows about the email addresses. Windows doesn't know anything about them. I'm sure macOS is similar.
I've been waiting for Thunderbird for Android for a long time, because I really don't like the gmail app and I certainly don't like the email accounts being part of the operating system. But it looks like Thunderbird for Android is written to mimic gmail. But maybe there's a reason for that - perhaps it is not possible to add xxx@gmail.com or yyy@hotmail.com to Thunderbird for Android without also adding it to the list of Google Accounts. If so, please explain why that is required. Why can't it be part of the app instead of the operating system.
Why can't Android for Thunderbird be configured with email accounts that are not part of the Android operating system? What is the technical reason? Why is this required? Is there a solution?
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