"Description: COX
Server Name: smtp.mail.yahoo.com
Port: 465
Connection Security: SSL/TLS
Authentication method: OAuth2
User Name: your user name, duh - Mine keeps changing the user name to the last name I put into any of my 6 accounts. The only way it will send mail is if the correct user name is in the correct account (obviously). Why is it changing constantly?
click OK"
This is how I work this issue:
The Cox login remains the same as the one used to login to the Cox service, not necessarily the one that was used to login to your Cox webmail or other Cox email addresses, that doesn't change.
The Yahoo email address remains what it was with Cox (username@cox.net), with a new password. I had 4 emails that transferred over to Yahoo and my son had another (he is mad because you can't forward emails without paying $5/month for Yahoo premium, so anything that comes up that uses the Yahoo/Cox email he is updating the email service to another email and will soon be off the Yahoo/Cox service).
I use the POP3 and have all the emails stay on the server. I did the Third Party app password from Yahoo once (not even sure it worked). Since then all my email addresses under Thunderbird use just the one password for each account (4) and Thunderbird does all my junk mail filtering.
I have not logged into Yahoo web email in about a month and have not had to update any passwords or keep entering the passwords since I got everything transferred over.
I have found that the email is slow, numerous times with 2FA logins that send the code to email have timed out because the email hasn't arrived in time to use it (upwards of 5 minutes), in the process of moving those over to my phone, and will have to deal with the junk texts that come since they will have my phone number.
I hate to admit it, but since the initial PAIN of the transfer and the ongoing 2FA issues, it has been uneventful.
I still harbor animosity towards Cox with this whole transfer, because once you transferred your email their attitude was like, "HA! you're Yahoo's issue now!" And Yahoo, either playing dumb as to get third party apps going (of course everything except their app is going to be less secure) was of no help, was probably hoping people would just give up and not use other apps. Still, my thanks goes to Waleee (the originator of this thread) to get me operational.
Gidgey –
[Windows 11, T-bird V102, multiple Cox accounts] As I mentioned earlier, I experienced what I think is the same SMTP problem you are describing. I finally got past it, though I used POP, not IMAP, and the "Normal password" approach and not OAuth2. What I found is that when you set up the SMTP server, you immediately run into the "Default" designation. And when you enter an email account name into the "Default Server" box, the SMTP server now works only for that specific email account and no other. In earlier (Cox) days, you could point multiple email accounts at the same Default Server, and it would work. This seems no longer true.
To get past this, I closed T-bird, opened Yahoo email, logged into ONE of my email accounts, then went to Security>App Password, and generated an App Password (16 characters). That App Password is associated with the specific email account that I just logged into, so I wrote it down, along with the name of the account that generated it. Now I logged out of that email account, logged in to the next account, and did the same thing. Again, wrote down the App Password and the account name that generated it. Did this for each of my Cox email accounts – I had 6 of them. When I had done all of them, I logged out of Yahoo email entirely, and closed it.
Now open T-bird. Set up each of your accounts as you would expect to, EXCEPT that you may not point more than one account to the Default SMTP Server (and you are not required to use the Default Server for any of them). So do not hit EDIT SMTP Server. If you do, it will ask you to enter an account name., and it changes the default account from the previous one to the one you just entered. You need to set up a non-default SMTP server. Click Manage Identities. In the resulting box, you can ADD an SMTP server that is not a Default – do not click the "Make Default" button. And going forward, when T-bird asks you to enter a password for either POP or SMTP, enter the account's App Password from the list you made earlier, and click Save Password. Click DONE (or whatever), and then repeat this for each of your other accounts. This should get you up and running.
As a check, open T-bird, and find and click the Passwords>Show Passwords setting. You should see a POP Server line for each account, and an SMTP Server line for each account, and both of those lines should show the App Password for that account.
It took me a long time to figure this out, but it worked. I don't know how it would be different if you choose IMAP instead of POP, or choose not to use an App Password, or use OAuth2 instead of "Normal Password". If it doesn't get you where you need to be, come back to me and I will try to help.
