I recently setup a Google Apps email and I’m using Thunderbird with IMAP as the client on a Windows 7 machine. I woke this morning to find the error:
server imap.googlemail.com failed
It wasn’t the easiest thing to find a solution, and oddly (and this is in my particular case) all the newer posts don’t seem to fix my particular issue. As things would have it a post on the Mozilla forum from 2008 answered my issue. It had something to do with unlocking Google’s Captcha:
Gmail IMAP setup
http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?f=39&t=758595
This is the comment:
Log in to your Gmail account in the browser, and unlock the CAPTCHA.
http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answ … swer=14257
Upon visiting the link above, I used option #3:
#3 If you’re still having problems, visit http://www.google.com/accounts/DisplayUnlockCaptcha and sign in with your Gmail username and password. If necessary, enter the letters in the distorted picture.
How to Fix “login to server imap.googlemail.com failed” for Mozilla Thunderbird using Google Mail IMAP
That’s about it, so here’s what fixed my particular issue with the “login to server imap.googlemail.com failed” issue:
- visit this URL to unlock CAPTCHA: http://www.google.com/accounts/DisplayUnlockCaptcha
- login to your Gmail account (don’t know if this is necessary)
- restart Thunderbird
- when prompted re-submit your Password
So, in my particular case, this is how to fix the error “login to server imap.googlemail.com failed” using Thunderbird Gmail and IMAP.