Outlook will require Oauth2
As of September 16, 2024, Outlook/Hotmail accounts will require you to use Oauth2, which they refer to as “modern authentication.” This replaces the login method that sends your password and is more secure. It is recommended that you switch to Oauth2 before the deadline so that you don’t have any downtime.
If you receive an email from Outlook that says you’re using “basic authentication”, this means that you need to switch to Oauth2; you shouldn’t receive this email if you’re already using Oauth2.
To verify that you’re using Oauth2 for Outlook in your POP Peeper accounts:
1) Edit the Outlook account in POP Peeper
2) On the right-side of your “Login name” is a dropdown box:
– If it currently says “password”, change it to “Oauth2”
– If it’s already Oauth2, you can cancel and proceed to step #4
– If you don’t see a dropdown, it’s because only certain types of accounts (Gmail, Yahoo, AOL, Outlook) support Oauth2
3) If you change the dropdown to Oauth2, follow the instructions to grant POP Peeper permission to access your email
4) Repeat if you have other Outlook accounts
Update: POP Peeper v5.5.2 added Outlook Oauth2 support for POP3 and Oauth2 is recommended when creating/editing Outlook accounts.
If you have any questions, send an email or post in the forum.
Outlook’s official announcement
>” – If you don’t see a dropdown, it’s because only certain types of accounts (Gmail, Yahoo, AOL, Outlook) support Oauth2″.
I’d appreciate a clarification on that.
Aren’t we here exactly because Outlook supports – and soon will actually require – Oauth2…? so this cannot be held as a reason why the drop down box allowing selection of Oauth2 doesn’t show up for an account interacting with MS Outlook servers.
A dropdown menu to the right of “Login Name” does appear if “Server Type” is changed from POP3 to IMAP (haven’t tried the other options down that menu). Changing “Server Type” back to POP3 has the dropdown disappear again.
I used that fact and changed temporarily to IMAP, got that dropdown menu, changed from “Normal Password” to “Oauth2”, and went through the authentication procedure with the Outlook server (not without buggy behaviour on Pop Peeper’s part, but eventually the procedure completed successfully). Then changed back from IMAP to POP3. The result was constant failures to log into my Outlook account (yellow triangles with exclamation marks…).
(I now went back by doing the reverse sequence of actions, and got the configuration back to “Normal Password”. PP is now back to logging in and checking mail successfully, but without Oauth2 o.c.).
At present it looks like POP Peeper doesn’t really handle well setting Oauth2 for accounts using POP3.
(I’m on 5.51, Windows 7 Home Premium).
Thanks in advance.
> Aren’t we here exactly because Outlook supports – and soon will actually require – Oauth2…?
I’ve been doing this long enough to know that some users will wonder why Oauth2 isn’t available for *all* their accounts; so I’m answering the inevitable question before it’s asked.
> Changing “Server Type” back to POP3 has the dropdown disappear again.
You’re right, Oauth2 for POP3 (only for Outlook accounts) is not supported by POP Peeper. This was due to deviations that Outlook made from how Gmail and Yahoo/AOL implemented Oauth2 for POP3. I’ll be working on supporting it this weekend and an update will be released when ready. I’ve updated this article for more information. In the meantime, you can either switch to IMAP (recommended) or use POP3 without Oauth2 until v5.5.2 is released.
> not without buggy behaviour on Pop Peeper’s part
Care to share? I’ve re-authenticated with Outlook several times in the past couple days and it’s worked well. The only time it wasn’t “smooth” is when I didn’t grant the necessary permission to run the admin prompt, but I was still able to complete the task by following the instructions provided. Although it’s possible that Win7 could be a potential problem; it’s a significant problem with the way Gmail does Oauth2, but Outlook uses a different method that, last I checked, *shouldn’t* cause any problems, but I no longer actively test Win7.
Thanks so much for your elaborate clarifications.
I’m sorry to hear you are into extra work and other “headaches” caused by Microsoft. Microsoft has long been a pain in the a** for non-MS developers and for efforts towards standardization and platform-independence, and this goes back to the early days of publicly available Internet and WWW.
> Care to share?
Sure! I’ll gladly get back to you on this soon. I’ll try to reproduce the behaviour and note down what’s happening (+ hopefully pull off a screenshot or two).
One thing from memory: there was a new PP window opening at some stage which eventually I could see was meant to display 3 options for proceeding with the authentication with Outlook’s server. Well this window was _blank_ during a good number of initial attempts, at which point I was stuck not knowing how to proceed.
But I think there was a glitch or 2 more, and I’ll try to supply a better account once I’ve reproduced the behaviour. (And yes, it wouldn’t come as a big surprise if it turns out to be some Windows 7 thing, ditto for the default browser I’m using – Firefox (115.12.0esr) ).
> In the meantime, you can either switch to IMAP (recommended) or use POP3 without Oauth2 until v5.5.2 is released.
No problem, I got PP back to its previous configuration (POP3/Normal Password).
We’re still in good time for Outlook’s deadline (Sept 16th).
I would like to hear anything you find about the Oauth2 page. The page you’re referring to is generally not critical, but if it was empty that probably means Windows was too busy processing messages and so PP may not have been responding like it should.
As of this morning, I’m running v5.5.2 with the changes for Outlook. If you’re interested in testing it before the official release, email me (find the address in PP under main menu: Help / About). The release is expected next Tuesday (barring any unforeseen circumstances).
Glad to report that with v.5.5.2, my previous comments above no longer apply.
Doing the configuration procedure to configure OAuth2 for POP3 Outlook accounts went 100% smooth, and the account has been checking since then every 15 minutes without the slightest problem.