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Comment by JanisErdmanis | Hacker News Reader

I used to run mu4e with my gmail accounts, those were fun times. That unfortunately no longer seems to be possible since Gmail, Outlook and others no longer provide SMTP service in the name of two factor authentication. Keeps my blood boiling as now every email provider has its own API.

Anyway, what email providers do people use today? One I found with SMTP support tends to be directed to spambox by Gmail.

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I don't know about Outlook and others, but you can still use any client you want, both for IMAP and SMTP access, using application passwords[1]. I have been doing that for years, both for Gmail and Google Workspace, without any issue.

[1] https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/185833?hl=en

Thanks, that looks like a good solution.

Is there an option for the folks on the security that disables app passwords?

I still use mu4e with gmail, offlineimap will work if you make an “app password” in gmail for it.

Sending mail works with that same app password and smpt.gmail.com, I use that to send email from systemd using msmtp as well.

It’s pretty reliable, but if you change your gmail password it revokes your app passwords. Only downtime I had was I simply didn’t know that, easy fix.

Fastmail works very well for me - for many years. Never a problem, great support.

> Keeps my blood boiling as now every email provider has its own API.

I can relate to this, I'm yet to find a way to connect my $CURRENT_JOB Office 365 to Gnus...

> Anyway, what email providers do people use today?

I personally use mailbox.org and never had a problem with SMTP.

If you need an IMAP/SMTP gateway to O365/Exchange, at least, try https://davmail.sourceforge.net/

I had to stop around the time of 2fa, as well. Hoped there was a way around that by now. (Well, not around, but with.)

2FA in what context? App passwords, XOAUTH2, Kerberos pre-auth...? OTP or FIDO? You should be able to work with them anyway.

"advanced security". It doesn't allow app passwords. At least, that used to be the case. Using security keys.

I assume that's oauth2 (which xoauth2 implies). It works for me with O365 and a Duo key for multiple clients.

Thanks for the pointer! I'll have to see if I can get that working. Last I looked at this stuff, I didn't understand oauth as well as I do now. (Which, I'm sure is still not perfect. Is an improvement, though.)

Edit: Am I correct that I have to basically make my own app in order to do this? (Ok if the case, just making sure I'm not looking in the wrong direction.)

I think you're meant to make your own app, but I don't have permission anyway. Some applications have their own tenant id (?) and you can copy, e.g. davmail's from ~/.davmail.properties, or even copy the token you get from it to use with something else.

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