http://www.ritlabs.com New posts in New Outlook.com/Hotmail/Live.com access requirements — will The Bat! comply? of forum at www.ritlabs.com [www.ritlabs.com] en http://backend.userland.com/rss2 Thu, 15 Aug 2024 19:48:00 +0300 New Outlook.com/Hotmail/Live.com access requirements — will The Bat! comply? Microsoft announced restrictions to access its e-mail services from third-party clients in forum The Bat! - Configuring the E-mail Client.
My experience with this MS announcement is that accounts need to use outlook.office365.com and Oauth2 for incoming and smtp.office365.com and oauth2 for output. That's a bigger change for some MS accounts than just Oauth2.
15 August 2024 19:48:00, david kirk.]]> http://www.ritlabs.com/en/forums/forum4/topic16379/message57016/ http://www.ritlabs.com/en/forums/forum4/topic16379/message57016/ Thu, 15 Aug 2024 19:48:00 +0300 The Bat! - Configuring the E-mail Client New Outlook.com/Hotmail/Live.com access requirements — will The Bat! comply? Microsoft announced restrictions to access its e-mail services from third-party clients in forum The Bat! - Configuring the E-mail Client.
Goytabr, you should really take Miloš' advice and contact Ritlabs' technical support using the Support menu on top. This is a user-to-user forum, not monitored by Ritlabs, and it seems doubtful that a fellow user will reproduce and solve this issue for you. Having said that, it would be greatly appreciated if you report back with the solution if/once you've found it. Best of luck!
29 July 2024 18:16:55, Daniel van Rooijen.]]> http://www.ritlabs.com/en/forums/forum4/topic16379/message56999/ http://www.ritlabs.com/en/forums/forum4/topic16379/message56999/ Mon, 29 Jul 2024 18:16:55 +0300 The Bat! - Configuring the E-mail Client New Outlook.com/Hotmail/Live.com access requirements — will The Bat! comply? Microsoft announced restrictions to access its e-mail services from third-party clients in forum The Bat! - Configuring the E-mail Client.
I recreated the Outlook account using the "Auto" option. It worked and asked for my Outlook login and authorization for The Bat! on an internal browser window, as expected. It's using OAUTH and all seems to be fine — except that I used to have a POP3 account, and now I have an IMAP one.

I don't like IMAP because it's more complex to manage, it uses more resources due to the continuous session, it can be confusing, and since it basically and functionally mirrors the server and mimics the behavior of the Web mail interface, it's more prone to mistakes having serious data loss consequences. The only advantage of IMAP, IMO, is easier access to the Spam folder if it needs to be checked.

The odd thing is that later I recreated again the account using the "IMAP or POP3" option (without deleting the one created with "Auto"), marked "POP3" during the wizard execution, and the newly created account was still an IMAP one. The "POP3" setting was totally ignored.

Not only that, but I had renamed the first account (created with the "Auto" option), and the new account appeared as a duplicate, already with the new name. It seems that The Bat! just copied the "Auto" account data and properties to what should have been a new, separate account, ignoring all the details provided while setting up the new account.

Well, in short: is there a way for me to have a POP3 account to access Outlook.com with The Bat! using OAUTH or whatever Microsoft will start requiring in September?

29 July 2024 07:12:41, goytabr.]]> http://www.ritlabs.com/en/forums/forum4/topic16379/message56996/ http://www.ritlabs.com/en/forums/forum4/topic16379/message56996/ Mon, 29 Jul 2024 07:12:41 +0300 The Bat! - Configuring the E-mail Client New Outlook.com/Hotmail/Live.com access requirements — will The Bat! comply? Microsoft announced restrictions to access its e-mail services from third-party clients in forum The Bat! - Configuring the E-mail Client.

====quote====
goytabr wrote:
The OAUTH option is grayed out (inactive) in the Transport settings, and Ritlab's on-line help is apparently years outdated (I'm using The Bat! Professional 11.2.1, the latest) and doesn't even mention OAUTH. So, I have no idea of how to make it work.
=============
It should work at least for Outlook accounts. Best to contact support using the link above.
27 July 2024 20:29:44, Miloš Radovanović.]]> http://www.ritlabs.com/en/forums/forum4/topic16379/message56992/ http://www.ritlabs.com/en/forums/forum4/topic16379/message56992/ Sat, 27 Jul 2024 20:29:44 +0300 The Bat! - Configuring the E-mail Client New Outlook.com/Hotmail/Live.com access requirements — will The Bat! comply? Microsoft announced restrictions to access its e-mail services from third-party clients in forum The Bat! - Configuring the E-mail Client.

====quote====
Miloš Radovanović wrote:
The Bat! has been supporting OAUTH2 for a while now, with particular emphasis on GMail and Outlook. See this thread:  https://www.ritlabs.com/en/auth-forums/forum4/topic16290/
=============


The OAUTH option is grayed out (inactive) in the Transport settings, and Ritlab's on-line help is apparently years outdated (I'm using The Bat! Professional 11.2.1, the latest) and doesn't even mention OAUTH. So, I have no idea of how to make it work.

27 July 2024 01:36:27, goytabr.]]> http://www.ritlabs.com/en/forums/forum4/topic16379/message56988/ http://www.ritlabs.com/en/forums/forum4/topic16379/message56988/ Sat, 27 Jul 2024 01:36:27 +0300 The Bat! - Configuring the E-mail Client New Outlook.com/Hotmail/Live.com access requirements — will The Bat! comply? Microsoft announced restrictions to access its e-mail services from third-party clients in forum The Bat! - Configuring the E-mail Client.
The Bat! has been supporting OAUTH2 for a while now, with particular emphasis on GMail and Outlook. See this thread: https://www.ritlabs.com/en/auth-forums/forum4/topic16290/
22 July 2024 09:50:12, Miloš Radovanović.]]> http://www.ritlabs.com/en/forums/forum4/topic16379/message56970/ http://www.ritlabs.com/en/forums/forum4/topic16379/message56970/ Mon, 22 Jul 2024 09:50:12 +0300 The Bat! - Configuring the E-mail Client New Outlook.com/Hotmail/Live.com access requirements — will The Bat! comply? Microsoft announced restrictions to access its e-mail services from third-party clients in forum The Bat! - Configuring the E-mail Client.
One of the reasons why I use The Bat! is that it allows me to access several e-mail accounts in one place. I have different accounts on various services for work use, personal use, hobbies, etc., and it would be extremely laborious to check them one by one. And one of my accounts is on Outlook.com.

Yesterday I received an e-mail from Microsoft with the subject line "Action required: you will lose access to some of your third-party e-mail and calendar applications" (I'm from Brazil, so I received the e-mail in Portuguese, and I'm translating it). It said (again, translated):


====quote====
From September 16, 2024, applications that use less secure logon technologies will no longer have access to your e-mail.
The protection and security of your information are Microsoft's priority. In order to keep your account secure, Microsoft will no longer support the use of third-party e-mail and calendar applications that ask you to logon using only your Microsoft account's user name and password. To ensure your security, you will need to use an e-mail or calendar application that is compatible with Microsoft's modern authentication methods. If you don't take any measure, third-party e-mail applications will no longer be able to access your Outlook.com, Hotmail, or Live.com e-mail address starting from September 16, 2024.

What do you need to do?

If you're receiving this e-mail, it's because you're using an e-mail or calendar application that uses a less secure authentication method to connect to your Outlook.com e-mail account. Update the third-party e-mail and calendar application to a version compatible with modern authentication methods.

...

How to configure your Gmail, Apple Mail, or other third-party e-mail application?

Various non-Microsoft applications have their own procedures to connect to your Outlook.com e-mail account using modern authentication methods. Please check our help article "Modern Authentication Methods now needed to continue syncing Outlook Email in non-Microsoft email apps." However, it may be necessary to contact those applications' creators to get instructions. In many cases, it will suffice to remove your account and then re-add it with the application's latest version to configure it to use modern authentication methods.

=============

I searched for the Microsoft help article mentioned (the title and linked URL above are the original English ones, not translations). Long story short, what they call "modern authentication methods" is OAuth2, which is not currently supported by The Bat! (at the moment, I access my Outlook.com account from The Bat! using POP3 with TLS to port 995).

It's also obvious that although giving directions for other clients, Microsoft is subtly encouraging the use of their own solutions (I have a Microsoft 365 subscription that comes with the Outlook client, but I refuse to use it because of its notorious security flaws, little flexibility, and patronizing design decisions).

And yes, I know that implementing a new authentication method in an e-mail client is not a trivial task, but as of this writing there are still two months ahead to come up with a solution.

I also know that Outlook.com allows e-mail forwarding, which could be a workaround, but I'd rather not use it if it can be avoided, for three reasons: 1. more easily separating e-mails from different accounts; 2. Microsoft's spam filters are already oversensitive and flawed, and adding another layer with the destination account would filter out more spam but would also increase both the likelihood of missing important legitimate messages and the complexity of accessing them; and 3. my past experience with Yahoo! Mail, which used to offer e-mail forwarding, but removed this feature a few years ago on very short notice and with no justification. Nothing prevents Microsoft from doing the same.

Moreover, for now The Bat! still works great with Gmail, which I also use, but Gmail has sent me warnings on several occasions that I was using an "insecure access method" (or something to that effect) and that it was not recommended. This is also always pointed as an issue in their account security check. So, it's possible that Google may also follow Microsoft's steps and block those "insecure methods" on Gmail some time in the future. If it does, that will be the end of The Bat! for me.

So, let me ask: is Ritlabs aware of this issue with one of the world's most widely used e-mail services, and will it do something about it?
20 July 2024 01:46:22, goytabr.]]> http://www.ritlabs.com/en/forums/forum4/topic16379/message56969/ http://www.ritlabs.com/en/forums/forum4/topic16379/message56969/ Sat, 20 Jul 2024 01:46:22 +0300 The Bat! - Configuring the E-mail Client