[SOLVED] Gmail login not working within Outlook

[DonS]

Hey All

I have a client who is using Outlook to access their Gmail account. They reset the password, but now the Google "One Account. All of Google" pop box that requests email / password is not... working? If I enter the email, click next, it just blanks out the email and continues to request an email address.

I have enabled two step authentication. Outlook (via control panel)has the correct email password and connects to gmail and sends a test message fine. It's just this One Account. All of Google login box is a game stopper.

Has anyone run across this issue? Any suggestions are welcome!

Thank you in advance (also, photo attached)

 

[timeshifter]

I have a client who is using Outlook to access their Gmail account.

Well that's your first problem

After helping multiple clients over the years using Gmail and or Google Workplace with Outlook I've come to the attitude that you should work with the platforms the developers prefer - use Gmail with Chrome and Microsoft 365 with Outlook, etc.

To solve the problem you're experiencing it may be related to a setting about letting less secure apps access Gmail. You didn't mention what version of Outlook. If it's not a recent release with all available patches that might be the issue.

 

[britechguy]

In what way is that box a game stopper?

What I'd suggest, first, is actually going to the Account page in Google for the problematic account and then looking in the Security Pane, Third-party apps with account access section.

For Outlook, Microsoft apps & services must have access. If it's there, you might want to nuke it and try creating it again via OAUTH. I'd also nuke it on the Windows side. The idea is to purge its very existence and start afresh, and if the access was via IMAP (and it should have been) you don't lose a thing by doing so.

I've got tons of acquaintances, particularly blind users, who use Outlook with Gmail. Outlook is one of the best supported email clients when it comes to screen reader access, with Thunderbird being a close second. Both have functioned as smooth as glass with Gmail for me, and I have several of my Gmail accounts set up in my testing instance of Outlook 2016 on this machine, but I use webmail as my primary interface.

 

[britechguy]

To solve the problem you're experiencing it may be related to a setting about letting less secure apps access Gmail.

Not likely in this case. If memory serves you will not even get the OAUTH process fired up for email clients that require less secure access to be on. I could be mistaken, as it's been a while since I last had to configure for less secure access for an older email client, but everything from Office 2013 (I think, it might be 2016) forward has Outlook NOT being a "less secure app."

 

[DonS]

In what way is that box a game stopper?

What I'd suggest, first, is actually going to the Account page in Google for the problematic account and then looking in the Security Pane, Third-party apps with account access section.

For Outlook, Microsoft apps & services must have access. If it's there, you might want to nuke it and try creating it again via OAUTH. I'd also nuke it on the Windows side. The idea is to purge its very existence and start afresh, and if the access was via IMAP (and it should have been) you don't lose a thing by doing so.

I've got tons of acquaintances, particularly blind users, who use Outlook with Gmail. Outlook is one of the best supported email clients when it comes to screen reader access, with Thunderbird being a close second. Both have functioned as smooth as glass with Gmail for me, and I have several of my Gmail accounts set up in my testing instance of Outlook 2016 on this machine, but I use webmail as my primary interface.

Game stopper since it obviously should accept the input of email address I am entering. I can not proceed since it just erases my entry and continues to request the email.

Less secure apps is on

I did check in Google security under Third Party Apps. There is no Microsoft / Outlook listed.

It is indeed IMAP. I have even tried to create a new account from scratch in Outlook and the Google box continues to not accept the email address input.

 

[britechguy]

It wasn't clear to me what the sticking point was with that pop-up OAUTH dialog. Now it is.

In instances like this, where there is weird behavior in a web browser (and, yes, that Google dialog is a browser dialog), I strongly suggest clearing browser cache, for all time, as an initial step. Then try again. A "cheater's version" of this is to temporarily change your default web browser under Windows Settings, and see if the same "stall" happens when the OAUTH dialog appears under that web browser. If it does not, and you complete the process, I'll almost bet my bottom dollar that there is cache corruption in the browser you had tried to use previously, and the solution to that is doing a complete purge of browser cache for that browser.

Also, since it sounds like you're using one of the more recent versions of Outlook, unless there is some reason to have less secure apps enabled otherwise, disable it.

Addendum: Since a picture is worth a thousand words, here's a screenshot for my Google Account where I'm using several different email clients for testing. Whether it's the Windows 10 Mail App, or Outlook, the entry for Microsoft apps & services is the one relevant to their access.
This is after I hit the +2 more link on the main security settings pane, as it only presents the first three there with that link.

 

[DonS]

I should have added this info earlier, which is to your point. I am familiar that this pop up is a browser pop up. User has Edge as default. I did change default to Chrome and attempted again, the same issue persisted.

 

[britechguy]

Sadly, you've already exhausted my "bag of tricks" or at least all of the quick and easy ones. I hope that someone else may have encountered this exact issue in the past. I definitely have not, and the OAUTH process for Gmail has always worked.

 

[DonS]

I greatly appreciate your bag of tricks! Thank you for running them past me. I will be hitting this issue again later this evening hopefully with better results Thank you again for your input. I will update with any progress / success.

 

[Sky-Knight]

Modern Outlook clients have native support for Google Auth. They do not need app passwords etc anymore.

In the cases like this, I get into the Windows Credential Manager and remove any save credentials for Google. Then I turn around and make a new Outlook Profile and try to connect it to the Gmail account. This usually gets Outlook reconnected, but then I have to go import the contacts and whatnot, because Google integration with Outlook is lacking in many ways.

This is among the many reasons I tell business owners every day to abandon GSuite and get into M365, it's simply a superior platform.

 

[britechguy]

Google integration with Outlook is lacking in many ways.

My question has always been: Why? Given how Google has generally been about allowing access to calendar, contacts, tasks, and mail for many email clients (witnees the eM Client entry in my screenshot), I have always presumed it's Microsoft that's balking at "playing nicely" with the Google ecosystem.

And unless someone can point me to some reliable information that indicates otherwise, that presumption will stand.

There are a number of third-party tools to "take up the slack" for contacts, calendar, and tasks synchronization between Google and Outlook, which means this is not, in any way, technically impossible.

 

[Sky-Knight]

@britechguy Microsoft has their own way of handling all that stuff that predates Google as a company, much less gmail. But the larger issue is the fact that the email side even if using modern auth is IMAP, and IMAP is a messaging protocol it simply doesn't deal with all the extra stuff.

So yeah, you wind up needing plugins in Outlook that can reach into the Google API to get at the other bits of data, and without those plugins which are often sold by various 3rd parties you're stuck doing things manually. Microsoft has no interest in making Outlook play nice with Google services, it's up to Google to make the plugins for Outlook to do that.

emClient is a good example of a 3rd party trying to play nicely enough with both to get noticed, and they're doing such in an attempt to get sales in an ecosystem that otherwise wouldn't give them the time of day.

I blame Google for all of this, and it's part of their mission statement... Google doesn't believe in desktop applications AT ALL. They think everything should be 100% done in a browser at all times. I disagree with this fundamentally, and it's a core principle of Google as a company. Just as a core principle of Microsoft is single sign on.

Microsoft has provided an API in the Outlook application that Google could use to make a plugin to make all this seamless. They've given a modern authentication system that works with most modern authentication platforms including Google too. All the tools are there, it's up to Google to complete the experience because it's their service that's required to do the integration. Microsoft loses money in this exchange because people then use GSuite instead of M365 for the cloud portion of their ecosystem more easily. So the two giants continue their pissing match, and we mere mortals are stuck in a very understandable, if infuriating at times middle.

But in the end, if you're paying for a cloud service and that cloud service isn't giving you the service you need, it's up to us to switch. Google isn't putting out, but charging the same money... so I switch to Microsoft. Microsoft gives me desktop / mobile apps that just work with M365 without me having to think. I can be 100% browser, or 100% desktop, they don't care... Google DOES care and as such aren't providing the services people want.

So yeah, if you want to use Outlook, don't use GSuite... that's actually a perfectly reasonable statement and it fits with the stated objectives of Google Inc.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

Outlook and GMail...like oil and water. Outlook was designed first and foremost for Microsoft mail servers....Post Office, and then later..Exchange.

Support for POP/IMAP was added as an afterthought....barely.

Gmail was designed first and foremost to be accessed via Chrome browser.

Stick to what things are designed first and foremost to work with!

 

[britechguy]

Stick to what things are designed first and foremost to work with!

Sorry, but no. Outlook, like most of Office, is the de facto standard for email clients. If it can't handle IMAP or POP gracefully (and my personal experiences indicate it does) then Microsoft should make it do so with all possible speed.

The user base of Outlook is immense, and the number among that user base that accesses multiple accounts that require different common access methods is also immense.

But, of course, I vehemently disagree with all who assert Outlook is like "oil and water" with IMAP and POP. That's the vast majority of the setups I've been doing for years, generally, and almost exclusively for users of screen readers, because they all support Outlook best, with Thunderbird being a close second. I almost never have a redo with Outlook and IMAP access. I will not setup POP anymore unless I am forced to do so because some podunk ISP only supports POP protocol. Sadly, those do still exist "out here in the hinterlands."

 

[DonS]

Following up. After tying a bunch of other things with no success. Creating a new Windows user account allowed the Google pop up to accept the email, enter the password, and give MS apps access via Google... as one would expect.

Thanks for all the help. Really wish I new what causes that issue. Would like to find a resolution beyon just a new Windows user account.

 

[taysr]

I've seen a similar issue with this when a user had multiple google accounts and chrome was signed in with a different account than the one I was trying to configure at the time in outlook. Britechguy is pretty bang on, in my case though I closed chrome and signed into chrome with the account I was about to setup in outlook, then open outlook and configure the account again. After all that sign out of the google account in chrome and sign back in with whatever you want.

 

[DonS]

I've seen a similar issue with this when a user had multiple google accounts and chrome was signed in with a different account than the one I was trying to configure at the time in outlook. Britechguy is pretty bang on, in my case though I closed chrome and signed into chrome with the account I was about to setup in outlook, then open outlook and configure the account again. After all that sign out of the google account in chrome and sign back in with whatever you want.

The user was already signed into Chrome and they only had one Gmail account. I did sign them out of Chrome, out of Edge. Tried again, no luck. Signed them back in, no luck.

 

[Sky-Knight]

Following up. After tying a bunch of other things with no success. Creating a new Windows user account allowed the Google pop up to accept the email, enter the password, and give MS apps access via Google... as one would expect.

Thanks for all the help. Really wish I new what causes that issue. Would like to find a resolution beyon just a new Windows user account.

Which reinforces my earlier suggestion to blow away the Google related credentials in the Credential manager, and then follow that up with a new Outlook profile.

New Windows profile does indeed work, but it's a much harsher fix.

 

[DonS]

Sorry, I keep neglecting to add other things. But yes, I removed Google related credentials from Credential manager. Still no change to behavior. In this case, after everything, my only option was a new WIndows user account

 

[Sky-Knight]

Sorry, I keep neglecting to add other things. But yes, I removed Google related credentials from Credential manager. Still no change to behavior. In this case, after everything, my only option was a new WIndows user account

But did you nuke the Outlook Profile?