Tricked by Google into blocking Thunderbird

[Brendan Burgess]

I use Thunderbird for my emails and it started sending me an error message

SMTP Server Password REquired

Whatever password I tried, wouldn't work.

I asked a friend and he sent me this reply

It sounds like you've gone to the Google Account settings where you let Google trick you into disallowing non-Google applications from accessing your mail. Google in their neurolinguistic programming refers to these as "insecure apps." If you go to accounts.google.com and turn ON the switch for "allow insecure apps" things should be working normally for you again.

And that is exactly what had happened.

I had got this email from Google this morning


It asked me to log into my account to confirm my recovery phone number which I did. It then suggested I do a security check.

Of course, I didn't want any "insecure apps" so , when prompted, I disallowed them. In my mind, I wasn't using any apps on my desktop.

Brendan

 

[Leo]

See here. Google now classifies any app that doesn't support OAuth2.0 as less secure, which is true, but likely not to a degree that bothers you.

They prompt you to do a security check just in case a dodgy app tricked you into reducing security measures without you realising.

See here for steps to enable OAuth in Thunderbird.