AT&T Community Forums

Questions on setup of secure mail key

I am having problems getting email on my computer running Thunderbird email client, but not on iPhone running Mail. Thunderbird support states I need to setup a secure mail key. I have a few questions.

1. When creating the key, will it ask for my original email password? It is the same for paying AT&T Internet, Home Phone and Smart Home Manager

2. Will I only need a secure mail key for Thunderbird and Mail on iPhone(which is already working fine) or for all services?

Information on AT&T does not explain this very well. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Responses

Accepted Solution

ATTHelp

Community Support

•

232.1K Messages

14 days ago

Hi @jodmcc1,

We understand that you're trying to set up a secure mail key for your AT&T email account. We'd be happy to help with getting your 2-step verification set up on your account with secure mail key.

When creating a secure mail key, it won’t ask for your original email password. Instead, you’ll generate a 16-character secure mail key that you’ll use in place of your password when setting up your email app. The secure mail key is unique to each device you use to access your email. So, you’ll need to create separate keys for Thunderbird and Mail on your iPhone.

To create a ⁠secure mail key, you'll need to go to the main AT&T website, login and do the following:

Go to Profile and choose Sign-in info.
Select the email account that needs a secure mail key. (You’ll find a menu at the top if you have multiple accounts.)
Scroll to Secure mail key and select Manage secure mail key.
Choose the email address that you’d like to use, if you have more than one.
Select Add secure mail key and then enter a nickname for the secure mail key to make it easier to recognize.
Choose Create secure mail key.
Select Copy secure mail key to clipboard. Make a note of your secure mail key, so you have it handy if you need to update an email app on several devices.
- For security purposes, the secure mail key only displays until you select OK.
- If you lose or forget the secure mail key, you can create new secure mail keys.
Select OK.
Go to your preferred email app and replace the existing password with your secure mail key. For an IMAP account, delete the existing password for both the IMAP and SMTP servers and replace them with your secure mail key.

You’ll need a secure mail key for any email app or program that doesn’t use OAuth technology (such as Thunderbird). If you’re already using Mail on your iPhone and it’s working fine, you won’t need to change anything there. The secure mail key is mainly for apps that don’t support OAuth. Accessing your AT&T email through a web browser at currently.com doesn’t require a secure mail key.

We hope these steps help and feel free to reach back out if you have any other questions or concerns!

Thanks for connecting with the AT&T Forums Community!

Jennifer, AT&T Community Specialist.

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