In this article, we will look at how you can use Microsoft's OAuth 2.0 authentication method for one or more of your Microsoft-powered email accounts.

Microsoft is increasingly trying to improve its security for their email products - for this reason, it is now strongly advisable that Mailbird customers use OAuth 2.0 when connecting any Microsoft email account to Mailbird since it is likely that you will encounter authentication problems if you do not do so.

It's also essential that you have the latest version of Mailbird installed on your device in order to have the option to select Microsoft's OAuth 2.0 authentication method for the list of options in Mailbird.

Connecting your Microsoft email account to Mailbird

You will find the steps below to connect your Microsoft email account to Mailbird by using OAuth 2.0:

• First, click on the Mailbird Menu in the top left-hand corner of Mailbird (i.e. the three horizontal lines).
• Then click on Settings.
• Now click on the Accounts tab.
• Lastly, click on Add in order to connect one of your Microsoft email accounts.

Once you have provided the details of your Microsoft email account, click on Continue in the next step and you will be redirected to the Microsoft login page. After you log in, you can return to Mailbird and your email account should be ready to use.

Additional information

• OAuth 2.0 is NOT supported for on-premise Exchange servers accounts.
• If your account is Microsoft 365 we will automatically try to use OAuth 2.0 authentication so you don't need to check anything. 

If you have a Microsoft 365 account which is using a custom identity provider (such as when using an email filtering or security gateway solution on top of it), then Mailbird may not automatically detect the email account's settings, and could try to use a password instead. If Mailbird does not automatically select OAuth in this specific case, you will need to manually change settings by following those two simple steps:

1. After adding the email account, do not accept the default setting but click on Edit server settings instead.
2. In the settings window, choose Microsoft OAuth 2.0 as the authentication method and then click Save. You should be redirected to a login page where you can authenticate Mailbird via OAuth 2.0.

By default, Mailbird will try to use the Exchange email protocol when connecting Microsoft 365 accounts, but you can also use IMAP or POP3 protocol by choosing Edit server settings and changing Server type.  Therefore, please note that for IMAP or POP3 to work properly you will need also to have SMTP Auth enabled in your Microsoft 365 organization settings (which is normally disabled by default for new organizations). You can click here to find out how to do this.

Hopefully you have found this article useful, but if you still require assistance when authenticating your Microsoft email account, then please do not hesitate to contact our Customer Happiness Team by clicking here.