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pluviosilla's avatar
pluviosilla
Brass Contributor
Feb 19, 2026

Outlook suddenly cannot access Gmail

 

I suddenly started getting a message in Outlook saying

"SIGN IN: Your account email address removed for privacy reasons needs attention, please sign in to use your account"

It was followed by a button labeled "Sign in via browser".

When I press that button, I'm taken to the following webpage:

But when I press Continue I get the following error:

You have denied Office access to Google - IMAP.

Please grant Office access to Google - IMAP and try again.

After a lengthy back-and-forth with ChatGPT, I ended up deleting my Gmail account in Outlook as well as my IMAP credentials in Windows 11, but it did not fix the problem. When I try to add back the account, I get all the same errors in all the same places.

I found one post on the internet where a use claimed to have fixed this problem by changing the names of the IMAP & SMTP server in Outlook:

In Outlook, add the account as IMAP manually:

  • IMAP server: change imap.gmail.com to imap.googlemail.com
  • Port: 993
  • SMTP server: change smtp.gmail.com to smtp . googlemail.com
  • Port: 465 

None of that helps.

gmail support
Outlook 365

1 Reply

  • ravinder25886's avatar
    ravinder25886
    Occasional Reader
    Feb 19, 2026

    STEP 0 — Remove Microsoft/Outlook access from Google’s “Third‑party apps” page

    Go to:

    https://myaccount.google.com/connections (myaccount.google.com in Bing)

    Delete anything related to:

    • Microsoft apps & services
    • Outlook
    • Windows Mail
    • Office
    • “Mail” with a Microsoft icon

    Why this matters:

    If Google still has an old “denied” permission stored, Outlook will never show the IMAP permission checkbox again — it will just fail instantly.

    This is the missing piece for most people.

    STEP 1 — IMAP toggle in Gmail

    This is absolutely correct.

    • IMAP must be enabled
    • Toggling it off → save → on → save forces Google to refresh the IMAP access flag
    • This step alone won’t fix the issue, but it’s required for the later OAuth permission to “stick”

    This step is good as‑is.

    STEP 2 — Clearing Windows Credential Manager

    Also correct.

    Outlook caches:

    • OAuth tokens
    • IMAP/SMTP passwords
    • Old Google authentication entries

    If any of these are stale, Outlook may skip the permission screen entirely and go straight to the “You have denied Office access to Google – IMAP” error.

    Your list of what to delete is perfect.

    STEP 3 — Adding the account again + IMAP permission checkbox

    This is the critical step.

    The checkbox wording varies slightly, but it always includes:

    “Allow Microsoft apps & services to read, compose, send, and permanently delete all your email from Gmail.”

    This is the permission that Google blocks by default.

    If this box is not checked, Google will deny IMAP every time, no matter what you do locally.