If anyone knows some FOOLPROOF way of connecting Outlook 2010 (on a laptop of 2011 vintage mind) to a Gmail account I’d love to hear it. Why, because my 80-year old mom is like a dog with a fucking bone with the “I don’t like Gmail’s web interface, I wanna use Outlook!” Every couple of months we try to follow the instructions (from say, here: http://pop2imap.com/gmail-outlook-2010.php ) to get the stupid Outlook client configured and it never works. I just don’t get what’s wrong.
I suppose I have to go over there and do it myself because dealing with this over the phone is impossible. I don’t know why she can’t just use the damn web interface for Gmail like a normal person.
I’ve been using gmail/Outlook for years with no problems. I’ll look over the instructions you are using and see if they match my own settings. Is she changing her email password and not aware it will break her Outlook setup? Maybe in Outlook just create a brand new email profile, connect it to Gmail and make sure that is the profile Outlook is using (you don’t need to delete the old one but you can specify which profile Outlook uses at launch).
Also, instead of traveling to her place or walking through things with her her over the phone, what I did with my mother in law was used Team Viewer.
You install Team Viewer’s connection software on your PC and walk her to that web page and in the middle of the page, under the giant picture, is a Quick Connect button. Have her click that, download the .exe, and it will give her a code and a password she reads to you over the phone, and boom, you’re in. It’s very fast and slick and totally free.
EDIT - Those settings/instructions look correct to me. Once you enable IMAP on the GMAIl side, there are only a few settings to set up on the client side. I’d go forward with trying to create a new email profile (search for Mail in Control Panel) from scratch.
Go to gmail (or google home page), log in, click your account picture, then hit the blue button that say “My Account”. then go to “Sign in and Security” and there should be a toggle towards the bottom of the page.
Edit: that setting might only show up if it’s necessary, because I don’t see it on my own account, though I’ve had to use it plenty of times at work.
Edit 2: I see that this option is only available if you have two factor authentication turned off.
Usually I get an email sent to the account I have set up as my recovery account. That email has a link. It is not an outlook setting, but a google setting. Google blocks Outlook (Apple mail, etc). Google wants you to use its app for mail. If you don’t, they block you until you find the setting that says something to the effect, “Allow less secure clients to connect to gmail.” or “Lower my security.” hahah, the setting has a fucked up name that makes it hard to set, even if you know the background. Those Google bastards! lol
Thanks for the info, guys. That’s probably the issue. So I wonder if Google considers these apps “less secure” simply because they don’t encrypt email messages from the device they’re sent from to the destination (end-to-end), or if it’s for some other reason.
And Scott, thanks for the link for that software. Being the “IT guy” for my mom and sis is exhausting enough as it is without having them (especially my mom) feel they need to read me every bit of text on the screen over the phone, however irrelevant.
