>options > security >passwords > Click the saved passwords button.

If you right click the entry in the list you can choose to edit the password. Personally I just remove them using the remove button and let Thunderbird ask for them when it needs it. That way I don't accidentally change the wrong password and confuse myself.

Matt, many thanks for your prompt reply.

I did as you instructed and found only two entries, as follow: mailbox://inbound.att.net (mailbox://inbound.att.net) smtp://outbound.att.net (smtp://outbound.att.net)

Are these actually passwords for which the secure email key could be substituted or are they instead incoming and outbound instructions for the server and need to remain?

I actually don't ever recall years ago when I installed Thunderbird, creating a password, which could be why there's only those instructions-like entries?

The names are how Thunderbird identifies the passwords. Harking back to the mozilla suite and netscape the accounts are still identified as "site" and have web site looking addresses. All that the entry contains is the username and the password as well as a first and last used date. Account settings are stored elsewhere. Under account settings.

Passwords are stores separately from other settings as there has always been an option to set a password to encrypt passwords to prevent other seeing them if they sit at your computer. That is in addition to the passwords store being encrypted on disk to prevent casual access by malware.

Thanks again Matt and due to your explanation, I returned to the site and realized that when I previously wrote you, I hadn't clicked "show passwords", but instead gone only as far as "Saved passwords".

I've now gone to "show passwords" and am able to see the passwords, which are the same one for each of the two lines of text I earlier copied and pasted into my message to you.

Also, I've noted that by double clicking on the passwords, they highlight, which I presume means I could delete them and substitute in their place, the new secure mail key I obtained from ATT.

Would that be the appropriate thing for me to do, delete those passwords in each of those two lines of text and replace with the new secure email key?

yes .....

Matt, I'm emailing via my webmail, not my usual Thunderbird app, as its become inoperable.

I did as suggested and substituted the existing passwords with the new secure mail key obtained via ATT.

When I then tried to use Tbird, it kept asking for the new password, which I entered several times, to no avail.

I went back into where Tbird stores the passwords and absolutely everything was gone, not only the new passwords, but the previous information which had been listed under "site, user name, last changed".

What do I do now?

Matt, after sending you the message from my webmail preceding this one, I went back to trying Tbird and when it asked for a password, entered my previous one, checked the box for it to be stored, it worked for both sending and receiving, then went to "saved logins" and the box now contains the former "site, user name, last changed, password" information, so my Tbird is operative again, but using the password I was attempting to replace with the new secure email key.

I notice that my webmail password for Yahoo Mail, which is the lousy way ATT delivers email, is the same as my Tbird password, so is it possible that both the Tbird password and the Yahoo Mail password need to be the same and that if I change the Yahoo PW to the new secure mail key, as well as for Tbird, that will sync matters and the secure mail key will function as the Tbird password?

slightly off topic, but is your account IMAP or POP in Thunderbird?

Matt, I just checked the mail server setting and its POP mail server

if it was IMAP there is a way to fool the system into using yahoo oauth, but for pop that does not work.

ATT instructions say: Go to your preferred email app and replace the existing password with your secure mail key. (For an IMAP account, delete the existing password for both the IMAP and SMTP servers and replace them with your secure mail key.)

You have done that and it did not work? I can only guess a transcription error on your part. I am no good with those gobbledygook strings and do not know many folks that are.

Many thanks for your efforts Matt; I'm sure you're as frustrated as am I.

You're correct, I did as ATT's instructions specified, only for Tbird to be unable to connect with ATT's mail server.

As to the possibility of transliteration error, I was very careful and even reentered several times. Also, when I copied the secure mail key from the ATT site after generating it, I was careful to do so correctly, as I too am well aware of how easy it is to err.

I'll now call the help number ATT provides in conjunction with their notice that the change needs to be made, in hopes help can be procured, although my optimism is muted, as their immediate response is always that they don't support Thunderbird. What I shall ask, however, is whether the passwords used to access ATT's webmail and for Thunderbird need to be the same, even though I know there's unlikely to be any correlation.

Well Matt, hours spent with ATT only resulted in more confusion, so I'm back to where I was using my former passwords with Tbird and not knowing what to do with the secure mail key.

I guess I just have to await my fate regarding what will occur when ATT switches to its new security protocol.