#703 accepted
Meindert

Lack of password field for accounts: Elegant ... and annoying

Reported by Meindert | April 6th, 2014 @ 03:15 AM

In Sparrow when an account is created, you enter the password in the account create dialog. When you change a password, you go to the account edit dialog and enter the new password. I don't know what Sparrow does with the password. maybe it puts it in the Macintosh keychain, or maybe it keeps a copy for itself (security problem?), but whatever it does, from the user's side the handling of passwords is intuitive.

MailMate, on the other hand, uses a just-in-time method of not asking for a password until it actually tries to connect for the first time, and not asking for a new password until it discovers that the old password doesn't work. This ends up being really annoying.

I will enter a new account and then have to hang around trying to trigger a synchronization (not really easy with Gmail) so that I can tell MailMate my password. If I change a password, I have to sit there repeatedly hitting synchronize and watching the Activity View until MailMate finally asks for a password. Sometimes it never seems to ask. I'll come back, and the account is offline, probably because MailMate doesn't have the right password for it, which I knew in the first place.

Living overseas and using VPNs, Google frequently decides that I need to change my password ("because someone in a terrorist hacker cybercrime country (i.e., anywhere but the U.S.) has tried to access your account"). So changing passwords for Gmail accounts, even though my passwords are unbreakable 50 digits of 1Password randomness, is a weekly occurrence for me.

I'd like to be able to proactively tell MailMate, "Yes, you're going to need a password for this account in a little while, trust me, and here it is. Tuck it away in the keychain now and you'll be able to use it later."

Comments and changes to this ticket

  • benny

    benny April 7th, 2014 @ 12:24 PM

    • State changed from “new” to “accepted”

    This is a very good argument for adding password-fields to the account editor.

  • Stuart H

    Stuart H June 5th, 2014 @ 05:40 PM

    Checking the status of this? I can't get the app to ask me for a password and now I'm locked out of my work account...

  • Stuart H

    Stuart H June 5th, 2014 @ 05:59 PM

    And, can't delete the account either, so I'm effectively locked out of my email account from MailMate. Periodic required password changes are a relatively common occurrence.

  • benny

    benny June 5th, 2014 @ 06:33 PM

    @Stuart: The passwords fields are not implemented yet. Passwords are saved in the login keychain. If you open Keychain Access (Applications/Utilities) then you should be able to update or delete the passwords in order to force MailMate to ask again. In any case, MailMate should have asked you for a new password when the old password failed, but apparently something went wrong here.

    MailMate prevents deletion of accounts if it finds any messages which have not been uploaded to the server. Was this your problem or do you think it is a bug?

    Sorry about the inconvenience.

  • Stuart H

    Stuart H June 5th, 2014 @ 06:49 PM

    Thank you for the quick reply.

  • benny

    benny June 6th, 2014 @ 09:38 AM

    • State changed from “accepted” to “fixcommitted”

    Here is a direct link to a test version with password fields in the account settings: http://updates.mailmate-app.com/archives/MailMate_r4287.tbz

  • Stuart H

    Stuart H August 30th, 2014 @ 11:55 AM

    Benny -

    Following up here - my password expired. Changing the password in the account field does not work. I had to go in and delete the keychain entries.

    Need to reopen this.

  • benny

    benny September 3rd, 2014 @ 12:20 PM

    • State changed from “fixcommitted” to “cantreproduce”

    Is this also true for the latest test release of MailMate?

    Do you use any other applications with the same passwords?

  • Stuart H

    Stuart H September 3rd, 2014 @ 02:54 PM

    Just tested with Version 1.8 (4464). I enter nonsense into the password field and I still can authenticate successfully.

    For the record:

    Tested on 2 computers.
    I do have iClould keychain enabled.

  • benny

    benny September 12th, 2014 @ 10:11 AM

    • State changed from “cantreproduce” to “fixcommitted”

    I fixed some issues regarding this in the latest test release. You are welcome to try again.

  • benny

    benny October 15th, 2014 @ 03:32 PM

    • State changed from “fixcommitted” to “fixreleased”

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