A few days ago I started getting “your credentials are invalid” messages from my existing email accounts when trying to connect to the University of Warwick email servers. I hadn’t changed my configuration or my password so I assumed they had changed something their side. It turns out that they have disabled what they call “legacy methods” for connecting to your email account.

The advice is to “Please update to a client that supports more modern methods of authentication or use alternatively Webmail.” which isn’t all that helpful. Also IMAP is still modern and not considered ’legacy’, that’s why a lot of the big web mail providers like Gmail, proton mail, yahoo mail and heck, even Microsoft/hotmail still support it. Anyway, I won’t rant…

How to set up a new thunderbird account with Warwick

  1. Open up Thunderbird and go to Account Settings > Account Actions > Add Mail Account

screenshot of the account add menu

  1. In the following screen enter your name, university email address and the password you use to log in to outlook/your uni account. Then click on “configure manually” in the bottom left.

screenshot of the add account form: enter a name, email address and password

  1. In the new form that expands enter the following details:

    • Incoming Server:

      • Hostname: outlook.office365.com
      • Port: 143
      • Connection Security: STARTTLS
      • Authentication Method: Leave this blank or ‘Autodetect’ for now
      • Username: this is your ITS “U” number on your library card followed by @live.warwick.ac.uk - something like [email protected]

    • Outgoing Server:

      • Hostname: smtp.office365.com
      • Port: 587
      • Connection Security: STARTTLS
      • Authentication Method: Leave as autodetect for now
      • Username: this is your ITS “U” number on your library card followed by @live.warwick.ac.uk - something like [email protected]

    • Now click “Advanced Config” in the bottom right:

screenshot of the form populated with example values. The Advanced Config link highlighted in red

  1. You’re going to get a pop-up/modal asking you if you’re sure you want to close the dialog and create an account with the current settings - you can click “Ok”

screenshot of the warning model. You can click “ok”

  1. You should now see a full menu of settings relating to your account (and any other thunderbird accounts you have in the list on the left). From the Authentication method dropdown, select “OAuth2” (this wasn’t in the list on the previous page and is the reason we had to go through the extra step with ‘Advanced Config’).

screenshot of the full settings menu - select OAuth from the authentication method dropdown

  1. If you now click back into the main Inbox Tab your new account should be showing up. Click on the Inbox.

Select the inboxes/Local Folders tab and click on the Inbox for your new account to start the security flow

  1. You should see a popup appear asking you to log in to your Warwick account

Example of the oauth prompt you will see once you click into the inbox

  1. Next you’ll get a password prompt from Microsoft login, - enter your ITS/Warwick password. If you have 2FA set up you may also need to enter a one time passcode at this stage.

  2. We also need to set up the outgoing auth. Go back to Account Settings and scroll down to Outgoing Server (SMTP), from the list select your newly created warwick account and click “Edit”

Screenshot of outgoing settings, select your account and click edit

  1. In the Connection Security dropdown select STARTTLS and in the Authentication method dropdown select OAuth2. Then hit OK

Screenshot of the outgoing settings modal: select STARTTLS and OAuth2

  1. The first time you send an email you may have to go through the OAuth flow described in steps 7 and 8 again.

  2. You’re all set - if you click on the Inbox folder it should now start to populate with your emails.

How to migrate a password authenticated IMAP account

If you were already using Thunderbird and it unceremoniously stopped working then you should open Account Settings from the menu and follow steps 5-11 above to change your auth method to use OAuth.