G-mail problems

Hi ALL,

I was working on my sister's PC last week installing a new printer and had to start her e-mail program (standard Win 10 e-mail program) and it asked for the e-mail address and password when it had never had to ask before. I supplied the info and the e-mail seemed to work ok EXCEPT I kept getting a warning that the Gmail setting were wrong and that IMAP had to be enabled. I tried sending and receiving e-mail and it worked just fine. I also checked to see if IMAP was enabled and it was. So the e-mail program no longer askes for the e-mail and PW and works fine but she still gets the warning message.

A few days later I ran my e-mail program (MS Outlook) and I also had to enter my e-mail and PW which I never had to do before and once done it ran fine. However I never got the warning message.

I've attached the warning message. Any suggestions as to why all of a sudden my sister and I had to enter our e-mail address and PW when never needed before. And any suggestion on how to stop the warning message from showing up on my sister's PC?

Thanks,
Gerry

Because you had to enter the password again, it's probably asking for a Google app password. When you add a gmail account to a third party app like Windows Mail you need to enter an app password that is not the same as the gmail password. You get it from within gmail's settings. Go to Forwarding and POP/IMAP, and check there.

Bobby Phoenix said:

Because you had to enter the password again, it's probably asking for a Google app password. When you add a gmail account to a third party app like Windows Mail you need to enter an app password that is not the same as the gmail password. You get it from within gmail's settings. Go to Forwarding and POP/IMAP, and check there.

Thanks very much for your reply. That section of the Gmail settings is exactly where I went to insure that IMAP was enabled and it was.

Again, for my sister's PC using the standard Win 10 email program it is FULLY functional but just keeps on displaying the warning message. For my PC, using MS Outlook, it only asked for the Gmail address and PW once and is also fully functional but I don't get any warning messages.

Wisewiz said:

You've checked all of your GMail settings, and they all comply with W10 Mail's requirements, but the warning persists. Did you check the Microsoft Store to see whether there is an update for your current version of W10 Mail? I've known that to solve little problems with the app.
That warning can be stopped with an even more annoying workaround: Open the Mail app, Settings, Manage Accounts, select GMail account, Remove this account from this device. Then set up the GMail account in W10 Mail again. It takes a few minutes and a couple of passwords, and probably 2FA, so have your phone and the Google and Microsoft and local computer login (PIN, if that's your method) passwords at hand.
A look around the Web for complaints about W10 Mail malfunctions will show you that you're far from alone with this annoyance.
W10 Mail just seems to have to go wonky from time to time. Not frequently, not for everybody, but occasionally, and for some machines.

Thanks I'll give your suggestions a try.

It was so much better in the past when the standard mail app was Outlook Express, a scaled down version of Outlook (which is what I use). Maybe when Win 11 comes out everything will correct itself!!

I have used Windows 10 Mail App with Gmail and 5 other accounts for over 5 years and it has proved to be very reliable.

Outlook Express was used years ago and that was reliable then, however it would be unusable now with modern protocols. It was never better than the Mail App.

Sounds like Gmail servers in your part of the world may have problems. Or you may have some setting wrong within Gmail there are pages of those and very easy to get it wrong.

Gmail itself has rather stringent security features which it insists on using and intentionally delaying some Emails from some Mail servers it does not like.

I don't care what Googling around says about the Mail App from non users. I am a genuine long term user.