Thunderbird No Longer Connects to MSN.COM

Topic

Greetings All –

My wife uses Thunderbird for an email handler.  It came to my attention that the last messages received on her msn.com account were on 9/28.  Other accounts send and receive normally, and she can get msn messages by going to the msn website.  Information I’ve found so far says Microsoft has changed the way non-MS apps can connect.  A purported fix was to simply change the default authentication method from “normal password” to “OAuth2.”  I did this and still can’t connect.  Before making the switch, Thunderbird kept asking for the password to be inserted.  After the switch, there’s no longer a request for a password, just a message saying there’s a connection failure.  As always, any help would be appreciated.

Casey H.

 

Replies

Many email providers are now asking for an “App Password” when you use a third-party email client (like Thunderbird). It replaces the normal password you use on the website with a 16-character string (some email providers) that you use in the password box in Thunderbird.

Check on the MSN.com email site in the security section to see it this is the case there now.

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Casey H

Try this:

If you remove your current account from Thunderbird and then re-add it, the proper settings will be detected, and you will just need to sign in to be properly configured with Modern Authentication and the proper server settings.

Modern Authentication Methods now needed to continue syncing Outlook Email in non-Microsoft email apps

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Casey H

And to help ensure success of the procedure, make sure that Thunderbird is set to accept first party cookies.

Go to Settings (NOT Account Settings) > Privacy & Security > Privacy > Web Content and check the box that says “Accept cookies from sites” and in the little drop-down box below it, set “Accept third-party cookies:” to “Never”.

That should do it. Now, follow the instructions shown in @b ‘s post above and you should be all set. During that procedure, Thunderbird will prompt you for the password you normally use to access the email account using your browser/their web-based interface. Enter that password and Thunderbird will take it from there. The password you enter won’t be stored by Thunderbird, but will be replaced with a unique OAuth2 token that Thunderbird will use to log in from now on.

You will continue to be prompted for your password any time you log in using the web-based interface.

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Casey H

Thanks to all who weighed in.  It took a removal and reinstallation of the account to do the trick.  The reason I suspect was during the setup, I was directed to the MSN site to grant authorization for Thunderbird to access to the data.  There did not appear to be a way to do this just from the website and to just alter the settings.  It was all very simple from there.  Thanks again.

Casey

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b

Forgot to mark things RESOLVED

Casey