Struggling with Fastmail

[RHH]

Hello. I'm a newbie here. Please be gentle.

I use and prefer Thunderbird as my email client. I have accounts in TB for email addresses I've set up with my ISP and with Gmail; however, I've been remarkably unsuccessful in adding accounts to TB for email addresses I set up in Fastmail, ie addresses with @fastmail.com as the domain.

Fastmail support has NOT been very helpful. Maybe I need to brush up on my Australian.

First, am I trying to do the impossible when I try to use Thunderbird as my email client for those email addresses? I have been unable to get a clear, unequivocal answer from Fastmail support. I received one response to a ticket saying that @fastmail.com email accounts CAN be set up in Thunderbird, but I have been unsuccessful despite multiple exchanges with Fastmail support in doing so.

I want to emphasize that I CAN and HAVE setup an account for the account name and email address that I set up with Fastmail after signing up for the trial period. I CANNOT, however, setup any of the other 5 email addresses I set up with Fastmail as a Thunderbird email account. I THINK this means that I have successfully set up the 'app Password' at Fastmail and that its password has been successfully validated.

The problem seems to revolve around passwords. I say this because when I go through the process of adding an account in Thunderbird the domain name verification step is successful. I proceed to choose POP3 instead of IMAP and use the suggested validation values for port and connection validation and click DONE. Thunderbird proceeds to display a flashing message that it is validating the password. I've used the same password that I used when setting up the one Fastmail account, and I've tried generating and using fresh passwords. No matter what password I use, I cannot setup the account.

I've inferred that the password used in Thunderbird must first be setup in Fastmail so that when sent from TB, Fastmail can find and validate it. I might be wrong in making this inference. If so, no one at Fastmail has been able to correct me. If not, ie, if I must set up the passwords at Fastmail before trying to add accounts to TB, no one at Fastmail has been able to tell me how to set them up or that my inference about the process is correct.

There is more, but I'll stop here to see if I'm making a mistake up to this point.

ADDED: I run Windows 10 (22H2) and Firefox 115.0.2 and I realize that Fastmail is a browser app.

TIA

[SideshowBob]

You need to setup an app password by logging into the website. It's under Setting->Privacy and Security->Integrations. Have a look there to see what's set-up, but if you already have one for smtp and pop3, you shouldn't need another.

I suspect that you are doing something wrong with TB, but I don't use it myself. I doubt you should be setting-up more than one pop3 account for the same FM email account - if that's what you are doing.

[BritTim]

As a general rule, the use of the POP3 protocol is not a good idea (as I suspect Fastmail support gently advised you). With IMAP, there is no need for multiple separate connections to Fastmail. You can simply use multiple identities for the same account. Have you looked into that?

If you nevertheless want to treat the email addresses as though they belong to different accounts, you can do so by using the same main account and password you used the first time, but with an adjustment in the main account email address. For instance, if you originally signed up as joebloggs@fastmail.com, you can use Joebloggs/fastmail.com as the user name for validation. Permitted names are
username@your.domain
username#your.domain
username/your.domain
username=your.domain
See https://www.fastmail.help/hc/en-us/a.../1500000278342 for all the nitty gritty details.

The important point is that you do not use the sending alias as your user name. You must still use the main account name and password.

However, just use IMAP and switch to using the excellent Thunderbird identity support.

[Bamb0]

[JeremyNicoll]

Originally Posted by RHH

I want to emphasize that I CAN and HAVE setup an account for the account name and email address that I set up with Fastmail after signing up for the trial period

I have a single account with FM, with multiple identities (that is, several email addresses all of which are @ one or other of their domains) - more than just 5 though in my case.

I don't recognise the concept of having an "account name" and "an email address" (except of course FM do know my name etc). When I login to FM's browser interface I use an email address as the (primary) account name, and provide a password.

It's possible just to stop there and use that email address as one's only hosted address, or to use it and (in your case) 4 or 5 others.

It is BETTER though to treat that original primary email address as a secret that only you and FM know, only to be used to login to FM. FM do in fact allow one to change that address if you think anyone else has managed to find out what it is - quite a lot of us here do keep our primary username email addresses secret.

It's better because whereas anyone who knows your logon id can in theory then try to brute-force guess your password, it's more or less impossible for someone else to login as you if they have to guess the logonid which has never been public as well as the corresponding password.

That's - of course - true of all websites, not just FM; I use a different email address for every single website I login to - most of the email addresses concerned not being ones hosted at FM.


I'm afraid I haven't ever used Thunderbird, but I do have about 20 more email addresses registered with FM, unrelated in name to the one I use to login. Each of these is defined so that emails sent to any of them end up in my sole FM account - the one that the original primary email address/username gives me access to. I can write emails from any of them once logged-in to the webmail interface.

I'd suggest that you first use webmail only to get that working properly, and make sure you understand FM's (recently changed) terminology for what used to be called aliases (the extra email addresses) & identities (the combinations of those email addresses, the name (or form of your name) that you associate with each one, signatures etc) and what they now call just extra addresses (or something).

Beware that what FM call an "account" might be what other mail providers call a "user" and TB may or may not use the same terminology. I'd expect you only to need to define a single SMTP server (maybe a "sending account" in TB) and have it used by every one of your available sending email addresses. But then again, TB might need one SMTP server definition for each sending address. I just don't know. What I do know, having used various mail clients in the past, is that none of them used the exact same terminology for whichever features they offered and it could be extremely confusing reading advice written by people who phrased stuff in terms they were familiar with that didn't match the terms you knew or (if different again) that TB uses.

Originally Posted by RHH

I CANNOT, however, setup any of the other 5 email addresses I set up with Fastmail as a Thunderbird email account.

For receiving emails, you only have one place at FM (your mailbox, associated with your sole account there) into which emails addressed to any of your email addresses, will be placed. I would expect you to set up various folders within that, and filters to route mails addressed to different email addresses to different folders.

Then again, TB might require you to have 5 different INBOXes and sets of folders under them, one for each such email address. Some mail clients do do that.

Originally Posted by RHH

I THINK this means that I have successfully set up the 'app Password' at Fastmail and that its password has been successfully validated.

I am not certain, but I think one needs an app password for each separate application, other than the browser webmail interface, to login to FM.

If that's true then you'll need an app password for TB, but surely only one such? I assume you'd still use it with your account's primary email address (the one we mostly keep secret) when getting TB to login to FM.

Originally Posted by RHH

I proceed to choose POP3 instead of IMAP

As far as I know POP3 only allows one to access the INBOX within a mailbox. You only have one mailbox, and thus only one INBOX associated with it, no matter how many email addresses you have defined at FM.


I'd expect a POP3 connection therefore to fetch mails addressed to all of your email addresses. You'd presumably then use filters within TB to route them to folders which only exist within your TB application.


All the emails you send from TB need to be sent via the same SMTP server at FM. I would expect login to that server to use your account email address (the secret one) and the TB app password.

I have no idea if TB requires you to define that server once only or several times.

[placebo]

Originally Posted by RHH

I want to emphasize that I CAN and HAVE setup an account for the account name and email address that I set up with Fastmail after signing up for the trial period. I CANNOT, however, setup any of the other 5 email addresses I set up with Fastmail as a Thunderbird email account. I THINK this means that I have successfully set up the 'app Password' at Fastmail and that its password has been successfully validated.

When you say you set up five email addresses, do you mean you set up five aliases in your account, or did you actually sign up for five more Fastmail accounts (and pay a lot more)? From the rest of what you said, it sounds like you set up aliases.

If you set up the additional email address as aliases and insist on using POP3, what you want to do is:

1. Set up a folder for each email address.
2. Set the target for each alias to the appropriate folder.
3. Log into Thunderbird using the username+folder@fastmail.com.

Here's more info straight from Fastmail:

https://www.fastmail.help/hc/en-us/a...olders-via-POP

(The last part of Jeremy's post jogged my memory, and I dimly recalled a feature allowing access to folders using POP3.)

It's probably easier to use IMAP which will allow you to see to all of the folders. I don't use Thunderbird, but at a minimum, it should let you set multiple email addresses to be used with one account.

[SideshowBob]

Originally Posted by placebo

If you set up the additional email address as aliases and insist on using POP3, what you want to do is:

Someone mentioned that TB supports identities. Unless there's a specific reason why these can't be used with POP3, that sounds like a better way to go.

[placebo]

Originally Posted by SideshowBob

Someone mentioned that TB supports identities. Unless there's a specific reason why these can't be used with POP3, that sounds like a better way to go.

I was inferring, perhaps incorrectly, that the OP didn't want the email to the different addresses all mixed up together in one inbox.

[Terry]

Originally Posted by RHH

Hello. I'm a newbie here. Please be gentle.

I use and prefer Thunderbird as my email client. I have accounts in TB for email addresses I've set up with my ISP and with Gmail; however, I've been remarkably unsuccessful in adding accounts to TB for email addresses I set up in Fastmail, ie addresses with @fastmail.com as the domain.

Fastmail support has NOT been very helpful. Maybe I need to brush up on my Australian.

I want to emphasize that I CAN and HAVE setup an account for the account name and email address that I set up with Fastmail after signing up for the trial period. I CANNOT, however, setup any of the other 5 email addresses I set up with Fastmail as a Thunderbird email account. I THINK this means that I have successfully set up the 'app Password' at Fastmail and that its password has been successfully validated.

The problem seems to revolve around passwords. I say this because when I go through the process of adding an account in Thunderbird the domain name verification step is successful. I proceed to choose POP3 instead of IMAP and use the suggested validation values for port and connection validation and click DONE. Thunderbird proceeds to display a flashing message that it is validating the password. I've used the same password that I used when setting up the one Fastmail account, and I've tried generating and using fresh passwords. No matter what password I use, I cannot setup the account.

TIA

I think you will require an APP password for each fastmail address you are using in Thunderbird.

[SideshowBob]

Originally Posted by Terry

I think you will require an APP password for each fastmail address you are using in Thunderbird.

Not if they are just aliases in the same account.

[Terry]

Originally Posted by SideshowBob

Not if they are just aliases in the same account.

I though the OP said fastmail accounts sorry.