News

Announcement: On May 30, Google will stop supporting the usual authentication mechanism for emails

What to do so that the GeneXus applications that use Google accounts continue to work correctly? The answer is to configure an App Password or implement OAUTH authentication.

Google recently announced that as of May 30, 2022, it will no longer provide access to less secure applications. In other words, applications cannot simply authenticate with a user's username and password to send emails. In other words, your apps will surely stop working if you don't take action.

These changes imposed by Google are part of a strategy to strengthen the security of applications, as can be read in Google support: “to protect your account, as of May 30, 2022, Google will no longer allow the use of applications or third-party devices that ask you to sign in to your Google account with just your username and password.”

The good news is that there are two applicable solutions, one requires only configuration changes, another – although better – requires programming changes.

So that existing applications that send or receive emails using Google accounts continue to work without requiring changes in their programming, there is the possibility of using an 'App Password.'

Steps to obtain an App Password:
  1. Turn on two-step verification for your Google account
  2. Create an app password
  3. Use that password in the application (assigning it to the corresponding password property).
Another possible solution is implementing OAUTH authentication for sending and receiving emails in Google accounts. This mechanism is the one recommended by Google, but on the other hand, it requires changes in the programming. On the GeneXus side, we have implemented a new OAuth module and the corresponding support in the SMTPSession and Pop3Session data types. This is already available in the beta channel and will also be available in GeneXus 17 Upgrade 9, to be released at the end of April.

Both solutions are described in the following article on our wiki:

Special considerations for SMTPSession or Pop3Session with Google Accounts

Other articles that may interest you: