I just took the chance and commited to enabling 2FA and disabled logging via unsecure apps in my Google Mail account. No need to wait until 30th of May 
I generated an App passwort and I am using it with K9 on Android successfully. 
Btw: 2FA is not required on each mail fetch or sending. Only once during App password creation.
PS. Just configured the same Gmail account on a fresh Thunderbird 91.5 on Ubuntu 20.04 with using the App password for email. No issues. (There were additionally web popup windows from Thunderbird asking for the Gmail account password via a Google authentication mask. They concered calendar and contact access which I ignored/closed).
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Thunderbird is supporting OAuth 2.0 since Version 38. There are at a version number exceeding 90 right now . I configured manually the server adresses, ports and using Normal Password to use the generated App password instead of the OAuth 2.0 method.
Only when using TOTP. Push-based 2FA like the challenge or question type I described require a named device as Google, Microsoft er cetera will ask on which device to notify you. Hence the arbitrary limit.
Yandex also has the same authorization. This has been implemented in the Mozilla mail program for a long time.
Yesterday I configured my Gmail account on K-9 using the same 16 digit App password on my android mobile and android tablet. Both are working well. I use the same Gmail account in Thunderbird using OAuth2 and the account is setup via IMAP on all three devices.
Obviously, the best solution is to have OAuth2 implemented, so hopefully this can be done soon.
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I am sorry, but I remain confused. Having used my Google Account settings to set up an app password, K9 does not prompt me for that password. Instead, when I try to send mail from my Gmail account, using K9, K9 closes, without any obvious error message (perhaps because I have set K9 notifications to âsilentâ). But if I look at my notifications, I do see an Android notification that says:
Failed to send some messages
Could not find a valid MX or A record for domain gmail.com.
I am getting pretty sick of this problem. K9 needs to provide, somewhere, intelligible and concise instructions, which work. (Part of the problem, admittedly, is that Googleâs own instructions are dire.)
Just now I tried the following. I deleted my Gmail account - deleted it from K9 - and then recreate it. No dice: when trying to recreate the account (the account-within-k9), I got an error message saying . . an app-specific password was required.
I note finally that two of emails that I was trying to send via Gmail seem to have evaporated entirely. One was shown in my Gmail outbox (which is the only âfolderâ within Gmail that K9 enables me to see).
Sounds like you entered the server address incorrectly. See Googleâs help page for details: Add Gmail to another email client - Gmail Help
It (also) sounds like you havenât fully/correctly set up the gmail account in K9.
K9 doesnât âpromptâ you for a password. When you add an account there is an initial account setup screen where you can enter your account and password. If you enter âyourusername@gmail.comâ and a (in that context) google app-password, and select ânextâ, K9 will do some automatic setup. However, if the information is handy, itâs often just easier to select the âmanual setupâ. You will need to select IMAP or POP (the automatic setup assumes IMAP) and will then be presented with a configuration screen. The necessary gmail bits are included under âStep 2â on the link in the previous post.
Until your gmail account is fully set up (including id/pw that will let you log into your gmail account) you wonât see any remote (gmail) account detail/âfoldersâ.
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OK, I got it working. Here is how. I found that after a while K9/Google would accept as the password for my incoming Gmail my app-specific password and only that password. So I used that password for my incoming Gmail. I had that app-specific password setup for my outgoing gmail already.
So here are instructions, which work and which are reasonably full, for how to get Gmail to work on k9.
(1) On the web, (1.1) sign into your Google account and (1.2) find therein the link that says âsecurityâ and click that link. Find the heading marked âSigning into Googleâ. (1.3) Under that heading, find the mention of âapp-specific passwordsâ. Create a password of that type. In so doing, I donât think it matters what one puts under âappâ and under âdeviceâ. (Googleâs procedure for setting up an app-specific password will prompt you for values for those.) But you might as well select (from the drop-downs) or enter (using âcustomâ from the drop-down) whatever is closest to reality. (1.4) Take a copy, in one form of another, of the app-specific password (and note that the spaces in it are merely cosmetic i.e. are not actually part of the password).
(2) If you have no gmail account registered with k9, create one and in so doing ensure that you do the following. If you have a gmail account registered with k9 already, then edit the settings for that account such that they accord with the following. Use your app-specific password for both (2.1) your âincomingâ password and (2.2) your âoutgoingâ password.
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Maybe this should be added to How to set up with a Gmail account
GMAIL will make compulsory to use their specific identifcation security protocol. So that K9 mail will no longer support GMAIL. I had to switch to another e-mail client. Hoping to be able to come back to K9 mail soon, But this can happen only if K9 mail supports this protocol.
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All you have to do is set an app password for K-9 with Google, then everything works fine. Itâs been explained several times how to do that.
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@mgr â I donât believe that to be true. Set up (and configure K9 to use) an app password and things should continue to work past May 30.
App passwords are no longer supported. K9 will stop working on May 30. Period.
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Wrong. Googleâs help page explicitly states that you can use app passwords. K-9 Mail will continue working. You can just no longer use your accountâs main password, as that is considered insecure.
The recent replies in this thread are just people re-stating the same, wrong text again and again without having read the other replies. I will now close this thread, hoping that users at least read this message before posting.
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