[Users] Compatibility with Microsoft's Exchange ActiveSync Protocol?

[Dustin Miller]

On Sat, 13 Mar 2021 06:21:52 -0500
Jerry <jerry at seibercom.net> wrote:

> On Wed, 10 Mar 2021 18:26:43 -0500, Dustin Miller stated:
> >Does anyone know if the latest stable release of Claws or latest
> >development versions of the GTK2 or GTK3 branches has built-in
> >support for Microsoft's Exchange ActiveSync protocol for sending and
> >receiving emails?
> >
> >(I'm running Claws 3.17.8 on Linux Mint 20 XFCE.)
> >
> >If Claws doesn't have built-in support for this, does anyone know of
> >one or more plugins, tools, third-party apps, or similar solutions
> >that could be used in conjunction with Claws to provide this
> >support? (I've seen some pretty old comments online mentioning
> >davmail, SyncEvolution, and automx, but not sure yet whether these
> >are viable options and/or if there are better options.)
> >
> >I have some email accounts that are hosted on Microsoft's servers and
> >I've been informed that POP and IMAP support will be discontinued for
> >these this coming April, with only Exchange ActiveSync being
> >supported. I'm hoping I can find a way to still use Claws for these
> >accounts, since the only other option I'm aware of is the webmail
> >interface, which is less than ideal.
> >
> >Thanks in advance for any possible solutions or ideas of where to
> >direct my research efforts.
> >
> >Dustin  
> 
> Are these the notifications you are referring to?
> 
> https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/office/blogs/end-of-support-for-basic-authentication-access-to-exchange-online-apis-for-office-365-customers/
> 
> https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/office/blogs/deferred-end-of-support-date-for-basic-authentication-in-exchange-online/
> 
DM: Yes, that's the best I can figure out. In reading those and other
Microsoft-related things, it was a bit difficult for me to get a clear
idea of what was actually happening, since most/all of the information
seems geared towards IT professionals who manage their companies' email
services, and so a lot of it seemed pretty technical to me. It seemed to
me from one source I read that Microsoft was actually aiming to provide
support for a 'modern authentication' (i.e. more secure than 'basic
authentication') version of the POP and IMAP protocols, but I'm not
sure that's actually been rolled out yet.

DM: The email accounts I'm currently focused on are provided by my
employer who uses Microsoft's servers for their email management. I'm
basically just going by their simple message to us as users that POP
and IMAP support will no longer be available and we need to switch to
the Exchange ActiveSync protocol. The other thing to note is that even
if Microsoft supports a certain protocol or feature, their clients (eg.
my employer) can choose to enable or disable whichever ones they want or
don't want to make available to their users (eg. me). My employer's IT
department is only able / willing to provide email support for people
using Windows and Outlook, but they don't require everyone to use those.

DM: As a bit of a compromise (hopefully interim) solution, I installed
BlueMail and set up one of my email accounts with it using the Exchange
ActiveSync protocol. I was pleasantly surprised at how few dependencies
needed to be installed as well as how easy it was to set up the account
(all I needed to do was enter the same login info I would use to access
the webmail version of the account). If there aren't too many
limitations in regards to offline use and configurability, then this
will be a bit better than just using the webmail, but it would be great
if I could figure out a way to use Claws to retrieve the emails. My
best guess is that I'll be able to send emails from Claws since I
haven't read/heard anything about Microsoft discontinuing support for
SMTP.

DM: Perhaps I could further clarify that all I'm looking for is a
solution to send / receive email; I don't have a need for all the other
bells and whistles that are found in a protocol like ActiveSync.
Thanks, ---Dustin