I recently downloaded the free version of emClient (version 6.0.24928.0) to test it out ahead of the intended purchase of the pro version (I’ve a number of gmail accounts I wish to centralise). I’ve been most impressed with the app except for one major flaw for which I can’t seem to find a workaround.
I’ve got a single Gmail account configured and that account is configured on the Gmail end with 2FA and app specific passwords. The problem I have is that after initially configuring the gmail account with the app specific password, it works fine. However, closing and reopening emClient results in being prompted for my gmail creds (i.e. not the app specific password). If I enter these emClient wants me to configure it as a trusted app - which I do NOT want to do. It’s a mail client; I simply want it for sending an receiving mail (SMTP over SSL and IMAP over SSL).
So, my question is; can one just use emClient as a normal mail client for Gmail, leveraging the app specific password? If so, how do I configure this such that it persists across restarts of the app and reboots of the box?
I’ve deleted and recreated the account around five times and my patience with the app is now wearing thin.
This is a deal-breaker for me. If I can’t get emClient to behave as a normal mail client I’ll have to find something else.
I could be wrong - still learning about eM Client, but does not appear that you can setup the password access you wish to have when entering your Gmail account.
However, I understand you don’t want to do this, but you could go ahead and configure your gmail account as a trusted app, as you had mentioned, andthen go into Tools/Settings/Password Protection and create a password for eM Client to require at startup. This way you would still have the protection you want regarding access to that email account, but via password protection of eM Client, itself instead. That is, of course, if the “trusted app” option works to give regular Gmail access.
Really appreciate the suggestion, but unfortunately that approach doesn’t address my main concern (which I didn’t really articulate). The issue is that I take exception to apps (regardless of platform) mandating more access than they require to perform their basic function. In the case of emClient, I want it as a mail app to retrieve mail using established protocols - that is all. If folks want to integrate it’s other functions, fair enough, but I had assumed that you should surely be able to just provide it a standard mail config and have it do it’s basic job.
I think you’re right though; it seems this can’t be done. Seemingly on startup, it checks the mail account, recognizes it as gmail and discards the previous credential info to force the user to add it as a trusted app to their Google account.
Very frustrating.
Hello Tim,
I’m afraid that it’s Gmail that doesn’t like to separate its functions and to let other apps access mail under 2FA it needs to trust the app completely.
If you want eM Client to access your mail only, I suggest trying to set it up manually as IMAP instead of using the Automatic set up that will connect to your Contacts and Calendar as well.
In Tools>Accounts choose New Account, but instead of Automatic set up go to Mail>Other.
Set up your Incoming and outgoing servers manually (imap.gmail.com and smtp.gmail.com) and finish your account setup.
I’ve been setting up the test account as you describe; so manually configuring the mail servers, connection information and auth details. It works perfectly immediately after configuration and for as long as you leave emClient open. The issues arise when you close the app. It seems that emClient “forgets” the manually configured settings and reverts to OAuth. It persists with this behavior from then on and won’t be forced back to the use of manual settings.
I know it’s possible to use the manual config with gmail; I’ve been using Opera mail for a while (which is what I’m looking to replace) and it has no issues with the IMAP over SSL/SMTP over SSL configuration using regular auth.
I’ve still got emClient running, though now using OAuth. I’m not really happy with this as 1) emClient wants more access to my gmail account than the other client I’ve started testing and 2) I still prefer the use of regular authentication over OAuth.
Hello Tim,
I tested this again with a newly made gmail account and enabled 2FA, and the IMAP setting works for me even when I restart eM Client.
I only had to use the App specific password for both the incoming and outgoing server credentials, which is something I forgot to mention - in Tools>Accounts change the option of ‘Use identity credentials’ to ‘Use these credentials’ and change the passwords to the app specific password.
I set the IMAP Security to the Legacy option with port 993 and SMTP to Force usage of SSL/TLS on port 587. Could you perhaps try it with these settings?
As for the OAuth for the regular gmail setup, as I mentioned, if someone wants to integrate more features than just email, it’s gmail itself that demands the use of OAuth. But the IMAP option really should work for those who prefer regular authentication. Both of these authentications should stay persistent once you set them up, it’s really strange that closing eM Client prompts the authentication window again on the next startup.
Please let me know if changing the IMAP setup changes anything.
