Fix: “Server denied POP3 access” on Gmail

Learn how to fix the “Server denied POP3 access for the given username and password” error on Gmail when trying to add another Gmail account.

Gmail allows you to check email from other email accounts.

But, if you try to add another Gmail email address to your Gmail account, you may receive the following error message: Server denied POP3 access for the given username and password.

Server denied POP3 access for the given username and password on Gmail.com

And when you click on the Show error details link you will see the following message: Server returned error: "[AUTH] Application-specific password required: https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/185833".

Fortunately, you can solve this problem with a few changes in the settings.

Fix the “Server denied POP3 access” error on Gmail

1. Sign in to the Gmail account you want to add to your account (the one you are trying to fetch mail from).

2. Click on the gear button in the top right corner.

3. Click on Settings.

4. Click on the Forwarding and POP/IMAP tab located at the top of the settings section.

5. In the POP download section, you select Enable POP for all mail.

6. At the bottom, you click on the Save Changes button.

Now try again to add the account to your main account.

Note: If the account you want to add uses two-step verification (two-factor authentication), then you will also need to create a new app password for that account and use that password to add the account to your other account. How that works, I will show you in the steps below.

Create a new app pasword

1. Sign in to the Gmail account you want to add to your account (the one you are trying to fetch mail from).

2. In the right top corner, you click on the profile picture of your Google account.

3. Click on the Google Account button.

4. In the left menu, you click on Security.

5. In the Signing in to Google section, you click on App passwords.

6. Enter your password and click on the Next button to continue.

7. Click on Select app and then click on Other (Custom name).

Create new app password for Google account

8. Enter Gmail.

9. Click on the Generate button.

Google will generate a new app password and you can use this password to add the account to your main account.

Note: If the steps below didn't work, then you should first sign out of all your Google (Gmail) accounts and then follow the steps again.