Dear forum,
can anybody, please, answer the following question. As of today (22.10.2024), is it possible to use my Microsoft email account (Hotmail) with K9 in connection with the POP protocol? Microsoft switched to a modern authentication method, I know. Is there any way to use it for K9 and my existing POP account within K9?
Your help is much appreciated.
Best regards
There is no reason to still use POP3 nowadays. POP3 is not made for being used by mobile devices or multiple devices. You should really switch to IMAP.
I think you mean that POP is not meant to be used on mobile devices?
Oops, sorry. Edited.
Thank you very much. Yes, I understand your point and I will consider switching to IMAP. In my case POP still makes some sense but I don’t want to bother you with details on my email routine.
Just to close this subject: Is it possible to use the Microsoft email account with K9 in connection with POP? Apart from not being recommended, is it technically possible? And if so, how?
Thanks 1000fold.
We hear that a lot on the forum, but usually this is just people misunderstanding how the protocols work. I really recommend switching 
No, not possible with POP3.
i’m not certain that this is still an option, but at one point m$ (as well as yahoo and google) supported app passwords as an alternative to the site login pw and where oauth2 wasn’t supported. this worked for both imap and pop.
there was rumor that m$ intended to phase this out, but as i don’t use their services i’m not certain, but it may be worth checking.
Microsoft supports OAuth2. I got an email that my personal account wouldn’t be able to use it’s app password after Sept 16 2024. It did stop working, and sync’s didn’t error out either, which is odd. I did switch to OAuth2 and it works.
OK, I guess we could discuss the pros and cons of POP3 vs. IMAP but my point was simply to find out whether it’s theoretically still usable with hotmail. There is a lot of differing information out there, even on Microsoft’s own websites.
For example: if you go to this website: (German)
They give you explicit advice as to how set up your POP3 with the new authentication method (OAuth2). That is weird in my eyes (at least neither K9 nor Outlook 2019 seem to be compatible with those instructions). Also, in my Hotmail account I can still check the option “allow 3rd party programs to use POP3 on my account”. But when I asked this question on Microsoft’s own forum, they could not tell me how to make my POP3 work. That is why I posed this question here. And I am grateful for your clarification.
I mean, it should be possible for Microsoft to have their own website updated to such an extent that users like you and I can get 100 % precise information on how to set up 3rd party apps to work with Hotmail (or even their own software like Outlook 2019, which I use and which does not work wit my Hotmail address either).
In the end, I will set up my Hotmail account to forward my emails to my primary email account. I am tired of having to find these things out on my own.
Thanks for participating on this matter. I don’t want to bother you all any more, it’s not worth it, but maybe you can understand a little why I am frustrated… (I know, I kwow: switch to another protocol but that’s not the point).
Of course K-9 is the best email app 
but maybe there are others that support OAuth with POP if you really want to use it. But I see that you have found a workaround by redirecting your mail 
No, thanks. I’ll stay with K9.
K9 rules!