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Comment by okasaki | Hacker News Reader

Anyone else having problems with gmail? Today FairEmail stopped working on my gmail account - I get an AUTHENTICATIONFAILED Invalid credentials error.

I'm using the fdroid version, so I have to use IMAP instead of oauth2 for gmail (why? who knows, it works for office365).

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Google dropped support for IMAP text authentication on May 30th but didn't enforce it globally until today. If you check the "Allow less secure apps" section of your Google account settings you'll see it's been removed. You must use OAuth2 if you want to continue to use an external email client.

Oh, I see. Thanks. I'm not sure what to do then - I have a Huawei phone so I'm only using fdroid for apps.

The Fdroid version of FairEmail doesn't support gmail with oauth because of "Google security features" (??). It's only supported on the Google Play version.

I'm vaguely aware that there are sites out there where you can download apks, but that seems unwise.

> there are sites out there where you can download apks, but that seems unwise.

You can download Aurora Store form F-Droid. It is a Google Play frontend with an anonymous login mechanism and fetches APKs directly from Google.

You can try installing Fairemail through that but I'm not sure if it will fix the login issue by itself (maybe it also wants the chrome webview or google play services?).

Thanks. I installed FairEmail from Aurora Store and while the gmail oauth option is there, clicking select account gives a brief screen flicker. The store does that say that it needs GSF which apparently means Google Service Framework.

But!! As I was writing this comment, I went to FairEmail again to confirm the behaviour and it seems that my IMAP access has been turned back on and I can receive emails again. No idea why or for how long.

What a ridiculous situation. If I had a time machine I would go back to kill Hitler and also to tell my past self not to sign up for a gmail account.

If you create an "app password", you can continue using whatever email app you want.

https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/185833

In order to continue using non OAUTH apps to access you gmail, you will need to turn on two factor authentication on your google account and then create an "app password" for your email client.

Google stopped allowing username/password to authenticate to gmail in May. You have to use Oauth2. Not personally familiar on if/how to configure this with FairMail.

There's guidance in the FAQ document at https://github.com/M66B/FairEmail/blob/master/FAQ.md#user-co... that seems to cover Oauth2. For the parent, they seem to be on a Huawei device without Google Services, which may complicate matters.

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