App passwords for mail apps

When you need one

• With two-step sign-in on: mail apps on your phone or computer, such as iPhone Mail, Outlook, Thunderbird or the Gmail app, can’t sign in with your email password. Give each one an app password.
• Without two-step sign-in: app passwords are optional. With one for each device, you can cut off a lost phone without changing your password everywhere else.
• Webmail doesn’t use app passwords: sign in there with your email password, and your code if two-step sign-in is on.

Create an app password

1. In webmail, open Settings (the gear), then Security, and find App passwords.
2. Under Name, say what it’s for, such as “Work phone” or “Outlook on my laptop”, then choose Create app password.
3. Choose Copy password and put it in your mail app straight away (below). Then choose Done. You can’t see it again: if you lose it, remove it and create a new one.

Use it in your mail app

In your mail app’s account settings, use your full email address as the user name and the app password as the password, for both incoming and outgoing mail. Everything else stays the same as in Settings for any mail app.

If the app is already set up with your email password, open its account settings and replace the password, for incoming and outgoing mail, before you turn on two-step sign-in.

Remove an app password

Under App passwords, choose Remove next to it and confirm. Apps that use it stop connecting straight away. Lost a phone or a laptop? Remove its app password.

Keep them safe

• Anyone who has one of your app passwords can use your mailbox, even with two-step sign-in on. Treat each one like your password.
• Give each app or device its own, so you can remove one without changing the others.
• Remove the ones you no longer use. There’s a limit to how many you can have: if webmail says you can’t create more, remove one first.
• Changing your password doesn’t remove app passwords, so mail apps that use them keep working. If you think someone else knew your password, remove any app passwords you don’t recognise.

An app password called “Automations”

If your administrator connected your mailbox to automations, for example to post new enquiries in your team’s chat, you see an app password called Automations. It works only from the automation service, which uses it to read, file and send mail for the automations your administrator set up. It can’t sign in to webmail or a mail app, change your password or delete mail. If you remove it, those automations stop until your administrator connects the mailbox again, so ask them first. Changing your password in webmail doesn’t remove it. A new password set through Email password help, or by your administrator, does. See Connect a mailbox.

For administrators

• Each person manages their own app passwords in webmail. The admin console doesn’t list them.
• Setting a new password for someone in Users doesn’t remove the app passwords they made. It does remove the mailbox’s Automations key, if it has one: connect the mailbox again on the Automations page with the new password. If a device must stop at once, ask the person to remove its app password, or suspend the mailbox in Users.

Related: Two-step sign-in · Phones and computers · Forgotten or changing a password

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