Sylpheed and yahoo mail

Applications
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Hi altogether,

as of late I´m running into difficulties when trying to use the e-mail-client sylpheed with a yahoo mail account. :angry:

Until the day before yesterday I could use sylpheed in connection with a yahoo account without any problems.
Since yesterday however authentication seems to fail. :grimacing:

“Fehler bei der Authentisierung. 535 5.7.0 (#AUTH005) Too many bad auth attempts.”

is the eroor I get after trying to establish a a connection with the
yahoo server.

I cannot receive or send any e-mails any longer.

I´m not sure whether that´s the reason but late last year yahoo sent out reminder mails with this content:

"we’re letting you know that Yahoo Mail
will no longer support third-party applications (such as third-party email,
calendar, or contact applications that weren’t developed by Yahoo) using
outdated sign-in methods. We’ve noticed you might be using one, so we need you
to make some changes before 20 October 2020.

Please take one of the actions below to keep your inbox running securely […]"

The respective actions were inacceptable as they implied deleting one´s app on the system and then re-installing it with the possible loss of data.

For thunderbird there was still the option of changing the authentication method to “OAuth2” (desciibed here - in German - but with pictures: Yahoo sagt ich soll Konto löschen und hinzufügen. Geht das auch einfacher? JA! - Allgemeines Arbeiten / Konten einrichten / Installation & Update - Thunderbird Mail DE ). :+1:

Yet I haven´t found a method of doing that in sylpheed.

So does anyone know whether it´s possible at all to use a yahoo-mail-account with sylpheed nowadays? :question:

Many thanks in advance.

Greetings.
Rosika :slightly_smiling_face:

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I don’t know sylpheed, so you need to find out if it supports OAuth2. If it does not, you have to change to a client supporting this authentication method, like e.g. Thunderbird.

Usually companies make annoying changes but this one actually makes sense. One should use OAuth2, if possible, because it is much more secure.

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3

I checked the homepage and there’s no mention of OAuth2, also the project’s TODOs don’t mention it, so don’t except any implementation in the near future. The project’s wiki, which might have provided deeper insight, is in Japanese, so no chance of finding anything useful there (unless you’re Japanese, of course).

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4

I guess it’s just reasonable to recommend changing to Thunderbird. It’s a good app, open source, and works very well.

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5

If I were you, I would face two possibilities:

  • Use Thunderbird.
  • Use a different mail provider.

I personally use Protonmail. I used to use Thunderbird, but I like the Protonmail web client and it’s enough for me to have my legacy mail addresses on my phone, using K-9 Mail. One of those legacy addresses if from Yahoo, so it is guaranteed your account would work with that mobile app.

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Hi all, :wave:

thanks to all of you for your help and advice. :hearts:

@Akito:

It seems sylpheed doesn´t support OAuth2. Never mind, I actually got the problem solved (just now :wink:). See below.

Thunderbird I use, but just for my own e-mail-accounts.

It´s sylpheed that I use for my friend´s e-mail account. Explanation: see below.

But thanks for the recommendation of Protonmail. I´ll have a look at it anyway. :blush:

@Mina:

Be thanked so much for all the effort of yours. You certainly spent quite a lot of time doing some research for me. :relieved: :blush:

I also think the sylpheed developers won´t concern themselves with implementing OAuth2 in the future.

@ all again:

  • Explanation for the use of sylpheed (in case you are wondering):

I use sylpheed for my friend´s e-mails.

She asked to to have a look at her e-mail account on a regular basis as she herself won´t be able to do it.
The things is: There are several “business” e-mails like those from the electricity provider or gas provider etc. There are deadlines to be met and infos to be read.
So this yahoo-account of hers is actually a business account with no private mails whatsoever.

In the end I agreed to look at her account on her behalf and so I decided to use a different e-mail-client (i.e. sylpheed) for this one. I mysef keep using thunderbird. :smiley:

  • How I got sylpheed to connect to yahoo mail again:

Wth the help of the user Ubunux from forum.ubuntuusers.de who pointed me in the right direction I found out that yahoo offers the possibility of generating passwords for third party apps:
https://de.hilfe.yahoo.com/kb/Passwörter-für-Apps-von-Drittanbietern-generieren-sln15241.html
(this help site is in German however).

Basically by following the links provided by that page you can generate a one-time-password for a certain app.

I had to choose “another app” (or something to that effect) and could enter “sylpheed” manually.
This process generated a password which I copied.

The final step was to paste it into the password field of the credential tab in sylpheed.
So the original password (which wouldn´t work for authentication any longer) was replaced by this new password (which as a consequence is specific to sylpheed).
Phew. :nerd_face:

I checked the result and indeed: Mails can be received and sent. So authentication works again.
:+1:
What an odyssey.

Anyway thank you so much for your help. It´s highly appreciated. :kissing:

Many greetings.
Rosika :smiley:

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7

As far as I have seen, there are good grouping/sorting/structure mechanisms in Thunderbird. I think, you could easily separate this special case of addresses from your regular ones, if you create the right groups in Thunderbird. Not entirely sure if it is the case I described, but that’s how I remember Thunderbird.

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8

This is pretty customer friendly by Yahoo. I wouldn’t have even imagined that such a possibility existed.

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9

Sorry to crush your dreams, but this is the standard procedure and that’s just how the OAuth2 technology works. The official Yahoo app will most likely do precisely the same thing, but without us seeing it in action.

If you use OAuth2, you have to generate an “App Password”. This is how it works.

I read the descriptions of how OAuth2 works, and found out that there are actually more authentication methods. However, I only see the access token method used all over the place, so I assume this is the standard method, that everyone seems to use.

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Hi @Akito,

you´re right of course.

Yet I wanted to separate her e-mails completely from mine (to be on the safe side :wink: ).

As I tend to sandbox almost anything (with the highest security level possible) I use this command:

firejail --disable-mnt --private=/media/rosika/f14a27c2-0b49-4607-94ea-2e56bbf76fe1/DATEN-PARTITION/Dokumente/kgw_work3_sylpheed sylpheed

which (by use of the "–private=[special_work directory]" option runs sylpheed completely sealed off from the rest of the system.
I think firejail is really cool. :wink:
(https://firejail.wordpress.com/ )
It offers a plethora of possibilities …

Many greetings.
Rosika :smiley:

P.S.:

thanks for the additional info and the link regarding access tokens.

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11

OK, one really never stops learning. Thank you, my teacher! :kissing_heart:

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@Mina:

Never mind, Mina. I wouldn´t have known that myself.
So I also learned something new.
I think that´s just wonderful. :wink:

Many greetings.
Rosika :smiley:

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13

I wish everyone would feel the same. Whenever people think, they are done learning, they pretty much gave up on living life.

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14

Sorry I can’t help with yahoo as I use GMX mainly with Geary or most directly with the great interface provided by GMX webmail.
Getting same issues with Trisquel’s Icedove receives but won’t send - so I use Geary which has no problems whatsoever.
Sylpheed is the defult email app pre-installed with mini-Trisquel and I have encountered no problems and it looks and feels like Geary.
So I’m having difficulty understanding why Geary works and Icedove won’t send :thinking:

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@Akito:

Thanks a lot for your kind words. :blush:

I pretty much enjoy learning new things (using a Linux distro).

In fact I think all open-minded people feel (or at least should feel) some kind of thankfulness for even having the possibility of learning new things, tweaking the system to one´s liking and even do some sort of programming (e.g. with bash scripts).

That´s not neccessarily a matter of course and I believe that´s the beauty of Linux (among other things).

Yet it´s just one of the reasons I switched from WIN to a Linux distro. :smiley:

Many greetings.
Rosika :slightly_smiling_face:

@Andy2:

Hi Andy.

That´s alright.
Plus: we could solve to problem (post #6 and #9).

Sorry. Now it´s me who can´t be of any help as I don´t use Geary or Icedove.
Perhaps someone else may aid you here.

Many greetings.
Rosika :slightly_smiling_face:

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