UKC

Because I am a compete neanderthal with technology I have been using Windows Live Mail on my PC for well over a decade.

The trauma of getting it to talk to my original broadband supplier e-mail...and then again when I changed broadband supplier...was enough to make me change to gmail.  However, I hate the gmail interface and so made one final effort and got WLM to download from gmail too.  This was partly fuelled by paranoia about losing all my old emails and folders.

So I thought i was sorted - an e-mail address that would survice changing broadband suppliers, and a desktop utility that signed in automatically and had all my history.

But...Google have now mailed to say "To help keep your account secure, Google will no longer support the use of third-party apps or devices which ask you to sign in to your Google Account using only your username and password. Instead, you’ll need to sign in using Sign in with Google or other more secure technologies, like OAuth 2.0."

I followed their links and got baffled pretty quickly.

Is there a PC mail program that

- will work with Gmail

- is easy to migrate to

- can migrate my historic mail files/folders

- is low cost

If there are many, then simplicity is king!

Thanks for the advice!

Why not just use Gmail's Web interface?  It's decent enough.  It's unconventional so I can see why you didn't like it originally, but I think you'd get used to it with time.

But if you want a "thick" email client they probably don't come better than MS Outlook (as used by the vast majority of businesses), though you'd need to either buy it or take an Office 365 subscription.

Thunderbird:

https://www.thunderbird.net/en-GB/

I'd second what Neil said. Just use the web interface. Having a separate program for something when there is no need just makes one more thing that can go wrong or be a pita.

As far as I can work out the average app on my phone gets an update about every week, so that gives an idea how fast programs are being patched and changed these days. I don't think I've got a single program on my PC that interfaces with the outside world other than my web browser and an ancient flash game.

Thunderbird is a good email client, and works well with gmail.

You can also use the gmail web interface as and when convenient. The two are not mutually exclusive.

So Oauth is just a more secure protocol. You can still use your Gmail with email clients you just will need to get the latest version and use an appropriate authentication method. It's also a really good idea to set up multi factor authentication (not the same thing) as passwords are commonly hacked where'as MFA is very difficult to break (they would physically need your MFA device if using an authenticator app).

As others have said you can try out thunderbird.

These instructions are very straightforward for setting it up with Gmail.

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/thunderbird-and-gmail

Do not worry about when it talks about Oauth and other technical stuff. Just follow the steps outlined and you should have it working.

But really it's a good idea to set up multi-factor authentication. And to use a password manager not re-use your passwords. Ridiculously easy for an attacker to find credentials in a data breach and use them on other sites if you do not have MFA set up and you have re-used passwords. It can be daunting at first but it's better than identity theft and you will get used to it real quick.

I'm assuming that you don't have it set up based on the fact that Gmail wouldn't allow you to authenticate on the client you are using, not for any other reason.

I think you'll find gmail supports this via "App passwords".  I've done this for my aged iPhone and my desktop email client.  

See this link:

https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/6010255

and this:

https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/185833

I believe it works by detecting the identity of the program (e.g. from "user agent" string) and requiring a password configured for that particular app.

Neanderthal? I have not even heard of live mail.

Tried printing a photo off my old laptop today. Why did I even bother? Didn't get any where near working. Printers are the devils work. 

Another vote for Thunderbird.

Thanks all

I'll have a go with Thunderbird

Just be careful that you know where your email is being stored. If download locally by say windows mail or thunderbird you may find that the only copy of your precious emails is on that particular pc. Traumatic if it goes bang at some point in the future. Very.

Thunderbird will be using Gmail via IMAP - so all mail will safely stored on the IMAP server.

Nothing against thunderbird, it's great, but there's also a pretty slick mail client built into the Vivaldi browser. Try that if you don't like tbird.

A note/update for those that may follow....

I went with Thunderbird, just because a few people mentioned it (and UKCers are generally not trolls in their advice on this kind of stuff).

I followed the download link above.

The download is easy - asks if you want to open the file.  There's also an installation video on the Thunderbird site that I "painted along" to (also linked above).  The screens weren't exactly the same as what I was seeing, but close and it was reassuring.  I changed no settings from default.

Once installed, it opened fine...and proceded to download my mails.  Took a while as it also replicated the folders I'd had previously (which is Good).  It didn't replicate a few folders that were in the "Storage Folders" bit of Windows Live mail (which I think were from when I started with Windows 7), but I'll just keep those in archive on the old program.

The interface is ok.  I loathe programs that allow you to accidentally delete whole threads when you just want to delete one message, and it doesn't seem to set you up with that trap.  Folders are easy to navigate.  I haven't seen what's happened with address book and I don't use calender so can't comment on those.  Search is fine.

Finally, I *think* the following are true:

1. My mail is now in cloud as well as local, so not just me backing it up

2. It'll work post May when Google wants stricter security

Thanks once again for everyone's help

Glad you like TB.

It is quite customisable and reasonably transparent. The spam filters work well.

The only blot to my mind is the address book which you can't really sync with other systems (unless you start setting up LDAP servers etc).

Lots of free email clients to choose from here:

https://medium.com/issuehunt/10-open-source-mail-clients-fd7886bff999