Join the AMA (Ask Me Anything) with the Firefox leadership team to celebrate Firefox 20th anniversary and discuss Firefox’s future on Mozilla Connect. Mark your calendar on Thursday, November 14, 18:00 - 20:00 UTC!

Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

Can receive but not send emails with Gmail account

  • 1 reply
  • 1 has this problem
  • 1 view
  • Last reply by Matt

more options

Just thought I would post this information, as I had a hard time finding it. I just migrated my account to a new PC. My Hotmail account worked with the default settings, but my Gmail wouldn't connect.

This was due to the 2-factor authentication with Google. I could have disabled that feature, but I want to keep it.

Here's how I changed the settings: > Menu button - 3 lines in the top right > Account Settings > Server Settings > Authentication method : changed to OAuth2 > Follow the prompts in the pop-up to authorize google access. This will require secondary confirmation, mine came through my phone, but it could be via email.

After this I could receive mail. Later I discovered I couldn't send mail via the following error:

Sending of the message failed. Unable to authenticate to Outgoing server (SMTP) smtp.googlemail.com. Please check the password and verify the 'Authentication method' in 'Account Settings | Outgoing server (SMTP)'.

I did the following to fix: > Menu button - 3 lines in the top right > Account Settings > Select the account xxxxx@gmail.com > at the bottom - Outgoing Server (SMTP) hit the "Edit SMTP server" button on right > Select OAuth2 No further verification was needed after that and I was able to send and receive.

Just thought I would post this information, as I had a hard time finding it. I just migrated my account to a new PC. My Hotmail account worked with the default settings, but my Gmail wouldn't connect. This was due to the 2-factor authentication with Google. I could have disabled that feature, but I want to keep it. Here's how I changed the settings: > Menu button - 3 lines in the top right > Account Settings > Server Settings > Authentication method : changed to OAuth2 > Follow the prompts in the pop-up to authorize google access. This will require secondary confirmation, mine came through my phone, but it could be via email. After this I could receive mail. Later I discovered I couldn't send mail via the following error: Sending of the message failed. Unable to authenticate to Outgoing server (SMTP) smtp.googlemail.com. Please check the password and verify the 'Authentication method' in 'Account Settings | Outgoing server (SMTP)'. I did the following to fix: > Menu button - 3 lines in the top right > Account Settings > Select the account xxxxx@gmail.com > at the bottom - Outgoing Server (SMTP) hit the "Edit SMTP server" button on right > Select OAuth2 No further verification was needed after that and I was able to send and receive.

All Replies (1)

more options

The use of oAuth2 is the default for all newly added accounts to Thunderbird and has been for a number of years.

The fact your account is using a googlemail server name may cause issues with oAuth. Google deprecated those server names about a decade ago, just about when they exited the beta program. Correct server names are gmail servers. pop.gmail.com, imap.gmail.com, smtp.gmail.com.

The config file containing the setting Thunderbird uses when a gmail account is configured is here https://autoconfig.thunderbird.net/v1.1/gmail.com