OAuth2 and several Gmail accounts
I have four Gmail accounts linked to Thunderbird and have just had the message from Google about OAuth2 starting in May.
I have read I need to change my server incoming and outgoing settings passwords to OAuth2 instead of normal password.
When I then try to send an email it asks for my Google password which I enter and all is okay. However when I try to use another email account on Thunderbird it again asks for the google password for this account and when I go back to the first email account it hasn't remembered my google password again.
Also to make it even more difficult it won't let you copy and paste the password into the google account.
Have I missed something here and it should remember each google password?
All Replies (8)
does the process of entering the google credentials end successfully with Thunderbird being granted access? Or is it aborting, perhaps because you have not allowed cookies.
Note the update to V91.8 makes all the necessary changes to account settings to oauth. It does not however enable cookies if you have disabled them.
See https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/automatic-conversion-google-mail-accounts-oauth20
After you've changed your accounts to OAuth2, delete all records of your Google Account passwords from Thunderbird's password vault (Saved Passwords). With OAuth2, your passwords are not stored by Tbird. Instead, an OAuth2 token (a long string of meaningless characters) is stored in the password field. That's what you should see after completing the OAuth2 process for each of your accounts. You have to do it twice, once for incoming and once for outgoing server. Also, you must allow cookies in Thunderbird's Preferences, otherwise it won't work.
Thanks Matt & Stans, I seemed to have it working now, not 100% sure what I did, but went through all the settings again and seems to now remember my google passwords. I did already have cookies allowed so assume it wasn't that. I can see all the new OAuth2 token characters for each account but I haven't yet deleted all now unused passwords which I will do after taking a copy of them just in case.. Hopefully all will be okay, thanks again.
But why is it so complicated ??? Why can't Mozilla find a solution with Google to make TB "safer" without all the nag and troubles ???
kondoril said
But why is it so complicated ??? Why can't Mozilla find a solution with Google to make TB "safer" without all the nag and troubles ???
Why are you hijacking someone else's thread? Do you even need help with this? You can't have the same level of convenience and security.
He posted it on top mine according to mozilla email to me see:
Re: Stans posted an answer to your question "Google warning"
kondoril said
He posted it on top mine according to mozilla email to me see: Re: Stans posted an answer to your question "Google warning"
This thread's title is OAuth2 and several Gmail accounts.
Stans said
After you've changed your accounts to OAuth2, delete all records of your Google Account passwords from Thunderbird's password vault (Saved Passwords).
Thanks, this did it for me. I was accepting cookies, but when trying to retrieve messages for the account, Thunderbird was just saying authentication failed or something like that (that error message could be improved.) Deleting all passwords for the account fixed things.