Help creating new email account and attaching to thunderbird

[Robert Meier]

I just created an @att.net email account on a new Lenovo E490 suse leap 15.6 computer and i was able to login to read test webmail on mail.yahoo.com on that new computer via firefox.

While all the account creation info was still on the still active new computer,

I, so far unsuccessfully, tried to connect the new att.net email to thunderbird (on my old computer).

On the old computer thunderbird pop3 setup times out "verifying password" on old computer.  Also Firefox on the old computer fails to login for webmail access, claiming invalid password (though the password was successfully retried on the new computer).

How can I create new email accounts?

Does anyone else have more than 1 email account?

How can I connect an att.net account to thunderbird pop3

How can I connect an email account to thunderbird pop3(s)

I fear that when I next shutdown my new computer or reload OpenSUSE that I will be unable to relogin to att.net webmail, AND be blocked from creating another email address since I fear it will claim my wireless phone number has already been tied (to the email it will no longer allow me to access).

I used to use email accounts in my personal domain on my Raspberry Pi, but (after >10 years) the hardware has failed.

Help

I am in NC but can be contacted by phone.

Ask Jason Eckard or Ben Francis for my phone number.

[shay walters]

I prefer IMAP to POP3. With POP3, you download any emails to your
local computer, and if anything happens to that local computer, you
can lose your emails if you don't have them backed up. Also, I think
I remember that some ISPs don't support POP3. With IMAP, the emails
stay on your ISP's server and you can access them from any computer
that you set up a client on.. Another good option that I like is to
use web-mail. Use a web browser interface to access your email, and
the emails stay on the server so you can access them from anywhere.
The standard GMAIL interface is an example of this. At one time, AT&T
had out-sourced all of their email handling to Yahoo mail. I'm not
sure if that's still the case.

Shay

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[George Law]

First thought of mine is you're not configured to use ssl which I think is mandatory

https://www.att.com/support/article/email-support/KM1010523/

What OS is the "old" computer? There was a big change a couple years ago with ssl/tls ... You may need to make sure everything is updated with the latest versions of the ssl/tls libraries

I've got an unused att email, I'll give this a try tomorrow when I'll be back in the office 🤣 (inside joke as I work from home)

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/uclug/CAKdjT5K4GcVgMB39055-dsS%2B8hYCKGT9c4hoN_tJfV1oPf5M5g%40mail.gmail.com.

[George Law]

Robert

tried setting up my geol...@att.net email this morning in thunderbird 

From my att account i created a new security key for my email account

I did Account Settings -> Account Actions -> Add Mail Account

put in geol...@att.net, the new security key as the password and clicked continue.

it auto discovered all of the proper settings, added the account.

i could immediately send/receive email through thunderbird with it no problem.

I'm running the following on Fedora 42

thunderbird-128.11.0-1.fc42.x86_64

no problems at all....

check what version you've got installed on the "old computer" and maybe its too old based on the TLS/SSL updates a few years back?????

~George

[Robert Meier]

George and Shay,

Thank you for your help.

Though not fully tested yet, I learned that yahoo.com requires a
"secure mail key" (assigned pin) for mail user agents
(e.g. thunderbird). I was able to configure thunderbird on a third
computer (hp elite) with the secure mail key.
On further request, I'll answer questions and put together a help sheet
as I learn and test more.

On 6/15/25 10:06 AM, George Law wrote:
> First thought of mine is you're not configured to use ssl which I think is
> mandatory

Thank you. I'm actually using pop3s and smpts with tls/ssl, gpg2,
ssh, and openssh on all computers.

> https://www.att.com/support/article/email-support/KM1010523/
> What OS is the "old" computer? There was a big change a couple years ago
> with ssl/tls ... You may need to make sure everything is updated with the
> latest versions of the ssl/tls libraries

The "old computer" is 2019 Lenovo Ideapad L340 running openSuSE
Leap-15.3. openSuse no longer supports its hardware. Its keyboard is
broken and I planned to replace the laptop rather than fix/upgrade its
components.
I am now in the process of loading openSuSE-15.6 and Mint-22.1 onto a
1.8T SSB in a 2023 Lenovo Thinkpad E490. It was sold with Windows-11
on an internal NVME. Any (dis)recommendations regarding multiboot
setup would be appreciated under separate thread.

I use thunderbird on this "old" computer with gmail account and used
to use it with att and other mail accounts. Unfortunately most of my
mail providers seem to have ceased operations before 2022, and this
"old" computer is aging.

> I've got an unused att email, I'll give this a try tomorrow when I'll be
> back in the office 🤣 (inside joke as I work from home)

The following may be incomplete or inaccurate:
I learned that att apparently ceased providing email in 2021, and
att.net accounts are provided by yahoo.com under the brand
"currently"
I learned yahoo.com apparently requires a "secure mail key"
(assigned pin) to use with a mail user agent (e.g. thunderbird).
To create a "secure mail key" one apparently needs to use
"manage secure mail keys" from their att/yahoo profile.
Please let me know if you learn differently or more when you try to use
your att mail.

>> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/uclug/CAKdjT5K4GcVgMB39055-dsS%2B8hYCKGT9c4hoN_tJfV1oPf5M5g%40mail.gmail.com
>> .
>>
>

[Robert Meier]

Thank you George.

I regret our reports crossed in the thread.

Your report of new security key, different than webmail key, appears to be what I needed.

I presume you used "manage secure mail keys" in your att account profile settings to create the new security key.

On Mon, Jun 16, 2025, 10:25 AM George Law <geo...@geolaw.com> wrote:

Robert

tried setting up my geol...@att.net email this morning in thunderbird 

From my att account i created a new security key for my email account

I did Account Settings -> Account Actions -> Add Mail Account

put in geol...@att.net, the new security key as the password and clicked continue.

it auto discovered all of the proper settings, added the account.

i could immediately send/receive email through thunderbird with it no problem.

My thunderbird-68.8.0 apparently also discovered pop3s (inbound.att.net:ssl) and smtps (outbound.att.net:ssl) settings on the "old" computer.

Smoke-testing via thunderbird on the "old" computer so far successfully received a ping (test mail) from my Gmail account, and replied to same.  The reply was successfully received at Gmail account.

:)

I have not yet tried to revive my previous (server unresponsive since 2021) att accounts.

I plan to try reviving those old accounts, using the same or new "secure mail keys", though I won't be surprised if they were not transferred to yahoo.com .

I'm running the following on Fedora 42

thunderbird-128.11.0-1.fc42.x86_64

no problems at all....

check what version you've got installed on the "old computer" and maybe its too old based on the TLS/SSL updates a few years back?????

~George

On Sun, Jun 15, 2025 at 10:06 AM George Law <geo...@geolaw.com> wrote:

First thought of mine is you're not configured to use ssl which I think is mandatory

https://www.att.com/support/article/email-support/KM1010523/

What OS is the "old" computer? There was a big change a couple years ago with ssl/tls ... You may need to make sure everything is updated with the latest versions of the ssl/tls libraries.

The "old" computer is openSuSE Leap-15.3.

The target replacement is Lenovo ThinkPad E490. I am attempting to install multiboot openSuSE Leap-15.6, but resume from sleep (save to ram) or hibernate (save to disk) is still failing.

I've got an unused att email, I'll give this a try tomorrow when I'll be back in the office 🤣 (inside joke as I work from home)

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/uclug/CAKzfAU5O%2BqcTwGRU-07M3qtxSk5F4m35wfXAqhs2s3Fw61sNVA%40mail.gmail.com.