Using OAUTH2 has been an option for several years and now it will soon be mandatory for Gmail. TB has that option and it's rather straightforward. You need to change authorization by going to tools>account settings>server settings and changing authentication method to OAUTH2 and then going to tools>preferences>privacy&security and remove the gmail passwords. After that, shut down TB and restart. You will be presented with a menu to log into gmail to grant access to TB. Once done, life should resume.

Thank you. I never knew about OAUTH2. I will need to google that.

Removing the passwords, do I just remove the Logins for the accounts? Not sure how to remove just the password.

Joe

from tools>preferences>privacy click the saved passwords button and then show passwords. doubleclick the gmail passwords and delete there.

Having trouble. I double clicked on the password. It was highlighted and I deleted it. However, when I moved to another account, the password returned. I tried delete, cut and backspace. What happens if I click "Remove"?

Joe

My apologies for being unclear. highlight the row there and right-click and a pane opens up with 'edit password' option. Use that to delete it. Do not use REMOVE as that removes the entire entry, which is not what you want.

Thanks David That got rid of the password. Now to setup the OAUTH2 thingy. I'll report back. Joe

Well, It's working but what a process. Thunderbird will not allow me to just delete the password. It needs something to replace the password. The only way I could find was to just put a "Space" as the new password. I will try just not deleting the Password and doing the OAUTH2 thingy. Thank you. Joe

Upon reading David's advice, I checked my settings and found that I already had OAUTH2 set. Is it really necessary for me to change the passwords that are in my saved list?

Also, the first time I searched for an answer to this, I found David's step-by-step advice. The second time, I found only one paragraph about using OAUTH2. The difference was that the first time, I searched with the phrase "third party" and the second time "3rd party." To help others find the longer, better answer, is there a way to file David's and Joe's conversation under "3rd" as well as "third?"

If you are using OAUTH2 already, there is no need to change.

Many thanks to David for this. I had a slightly different experience (I am always nervous about changing these things).

I got as far as tools>account settings>server settings and changed authentication method to OAUTH2.

I went to tools>preferences>privacy&security>passwords>saved passwords, right click - but no 'edit password' option- it was greyed out so I did nothing here.

Google then invited me to sign in to Gmail from Thunderbird and all seemed ok.

I can see server setting = OAUTH2 and I can see the new oauth\\accounts.google.com. The new password shown is nothing like my real password.

Same for my second email account.

All seems to be ok - I think. How can I check at the Google end that Google is happy?

If TB is accessing messages, all is good. The password step was sometimes required, but several have posted lately that it wasn't needed. It never made sense anyway, so it's good that it's not needed. I'm glad all is okay for you,

Actually, I skipped the password step on many of my accounts. It's just a pain to have to login to each account before it takes effect.

Having been completely bamboozled by Google's message and their unintelligible garbage of an explanation, I was relieved to find these helpful and reassuring instructions.

I began implementing these instructions only to discover that my Gmail accounts were already set up with OAUTH2 - BUT I NEVER SET UP OAUTH2 MANUALLY MYSELF - something must have auto-done-it. My original passwords are still there. The new OAUTH2 passwords are gobbledegook - I did not choose them - again, something must have auto-created them. I guess I'll just have to wait and see if things still work after 30 May 2022.......

PS I changed from POP3 to IMAP (I can't remember why now) - I hope that POP3/IMAP is not a differentiator on how well this OAUTH2 new fangled thing works.

John

I too have this annoyance. I removed the entries in the password (before reading that I shouldn't just remove it) and OAuth2 was already set.

For me, I was just presented with the browser login window for each account every time I accessed TB and also after entering the correct password, each time I clicked on a message (or anything to do with a google account) i'm asked AGAIN for the password, making it pretty much impossible to use TB for gmail accounts.

Have we found a solution for this yet, or do we need to wait for a TB update?

I've spent a couple afternoons horsing around trying to get the new OAUTH2 scheme to work on my Win 10 laptop without any success, trying all the suggestions here + this & that. No matter what I did everything would grind to a halt when the credential window would open. I would click to proceed or accept the username or password or whatever and literally nothing would happen.

After some reflection it occurred to me that maybe this was because I was running Firefox as my default browser with a scriptblocker. So tonight, because I just LUV solving IT problems on a Saturday night }: - [ I tried just switching Tbird on my wife's computer (Win 11, firefox, no scriptblocker) over to OAUTH2 and after I entered her PW with the "stay signed in" box checked it seemed to be working.

So then I went back to my machine. I disabled the scriptblocker, swapped over to OAUTH2, and now when I start Tbird I get the login window with my email address autofilled...and...when I click "Next" the email field just goes blank - and that's it. If I re-enter my email address, same thing.

Of course, sometimes I start Tbird and I don't even get the credential window. Kinduv like it's tired of playing & decided to go home.

Peculiarly sometimes Tbird receives and may even be able to send messages in this state (sent msgs don't show up in the "Sent Mail" folder) but the busy wheel just keeps spinning.

Any suggestions?

I think I just solved my problem. If you follow the link below there are instructions on cookies in Tbird (who the heck knew Tbird could have cookies? I didn't but no doubt I'm a bonehead). I followed the instructions, allowing only https://accounts.google.com, and it seems to be working.

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/automatic-conversion-google-mail-accounts-oauth20

I too have messed about with cookies and changing web browsers, but it just seems TB is not capable of storing credentials for google accounts.

On a slight tangent - does anyone know how to id which gmail account you are viewing when going to Gmail direct to check email? I have more than one gmail account and need to know what I'm looking at until TB can be fixed.

Thanks.

About 10:00 am EDT on June 2, 2022, Thunderbird stopped being able to retrieve my Gmail. I found this thread and the solution worked perfectly. However, I did NOT have to clear my passwords and log back in to Thunderbird. I merely changed the Authentication Method to OAuth2 and, before I even had a chance to take any of the additional recommended steps, all my missing Gmail downloaded immediately. Never had to do anything except change the Authentication method!

Thank you!

Sorry David if this sounds rude but I'm using Mint 20.3 and Thunderbird 91.9.1 and the links you said are under tool are under Edit. Once that was noted you started to make sense. I got as far as changing to OAuth2 Okay. Then from tools>preferences>privacy click the saved passwords button and then show passwords. doubleclick the gmail passwords and delete there. Once password deleted it restored itself so inserted a space. Exit and restart Thunderbird and I get. The server does not support the selected authentication method. Please change the ‘Authentication method’ in the ‘Account Settings | Server settings’. Another pesky annoyance Google asked me to login to my two gmails and then it worked or at least some new emails were delivered. I hope it does not do that each time I close and open Thunderbird. Exit and restart Thunderbird and I still get the above not supported message. This time Thunderbird is asking me to login and my password fails once again. I hope there's not info overflow with this post, thanks for trying. Ian.

David: I'm setup for OAUTH2, I don't have a saved gmail password.

I get a 405 (malformed request) if I try to login with my prompted (actual) gmail account. If I click on "create new account" and then "login" from there, I get a 400 (still malformed request).

Just going to blank browser and logging in works (there's nothing wrong with the g-mail account itself.

I've updated to Windows 10 v91.11. Shut the browser down (which, according to the settings) is going to erase all cookies several times. For debugging purposes, I've flipped the "Accept Cookies" to even allow 3rd party cookies ("always").

I'm stymied trying to copy the login URL, but what I can see looks proper.

Is there anything that you/anyone can suggest.