Mail account password recovery

[Elektra]

I just installed Office 2016 and need to complete all my mail accounts. I have the details of all except the password of one. It is in MW and it works but I cannot see it. I checked the user folder but passwords have been encrypted. Is there any way I can retrieve this password from MW please?

[TrustFire]

Can you check whether this post works for you — unfortunately, the restrictive safeguards on my system prevent me from testing it, for you.

[rusticdog]

We don't have any tool to extract passwords from MailWasher. The password utility mentioned in the link above looks at existing email programs, so if you have one installed that you used previously with that account, it ought to find it.

[TrustFire]

I have the details of all except the password of one. It is in MW and it works but I cannot see it.

On the web login page of this particular account, you should be able to click the "Forgot password" option and be eligible to receive/reset it, subject to a successful submission and verification of your corresponding credentials.

[Elektra]

I tried the password recovery tool proposed by TrustFire but I don't think I opened the correct file. I selected Accounts.xml found in AppData\Roaming\Firetrust\MailWasher and it worked well except that the one account I am missing wasn't even in the list. As I can see it in MW's interface and it is downloading my mail from that server without problem, it is obviously in there somewhere. Which file is it likely to be stored in please?

I am also logged-in to my back office of this ISP but the password to login appears not to be the same as the one used for retrieving mail. Under mail management I am offered the option to change my existing password which I don't want to do if I can avoid it. Ideally, I would have preferred to just redirect all mails to my main address but such an option is unavailable, which I find quite surprising!

[rusticdog]

No, that password exporter doesn't scan MailWasher unfortunately. It's only designed to scan (when you hit Refresh) email programs , ThunderBird, Outlook etc...
You can open the accounts.xml file, but all that does is load it into view, it doesn't do any decryption.

The password in MW is stored in Accounts.xml but it's encrypted and there is no utility we have that decrypts MailWasher passwords.

[Elektra]

Well no, it did decrypt all the passwords in that file but the strange thing is the one account I'm missing is not in the list.
Well it looks like I'm forced to reset the password. I know it sounds no big deal but while it is easy to do it on this computer I will have to transfer it to 2 other laptops (one of which isn't based here), my tablet, and my mobile phone. Maximum nuisance value.

[rusticdog]

It probably picked up those logons from the email programs, and the reason this account is missing, is because it's not setup.

In the Application column, it tells you what program the decrypted password came from.

[Elektra]

Ok, I solved this issue twice, except that I haven't because something very strange is happening!
If you are curious, here's a breakdown of what I did:

1. I only had 1 password for connecting via the web and via pop3. Yesterday, while setting up Outlook 2016, my password for this particular account was not accepted but, as I have no other, I went down the route of recovering the one in Mailwasher as that was clearly working. Following my failure with your password recovery tool I decided to try messing around in Outlook again and was lucky enough to discover the Advanced Settings tab. It appears that Outlook 2016 uses a new simplified setup called Outlook 365 and it was that which refused my password. By switching to the pop/smtp option my password was instantly accepted and the test mail was successfully sent and received. No errors were displayed.

So far so good, but here comes the problem...
In MW I can see a mail sent to that address and even though the test mails were coming down, this other mail wasn't.
Totally peeved with this nonsense, I moved to my next solution...

2. I phoned my ISP and asked how to redirect all mails sent to that address to my primary address. Within a minute I had set that up and the technician sent me a test mail to ensure it was working. It was ... but that sole mail which would not come down did not, even though it is addressed to the same address.

So that's where I am now. The password story has been solved and all my mails are arriving as they should, except for that one mail which sits in MW grinning at me and giving me the bird.

The simplest solution would be just to use MW to delete it from the server however, it is a contract confirmation which I actually need and as I cannot open attachments in MW I am stumped for a solution.

[rusticdog]

If you restart MailWasher, that email still loads ?

Has Outlook junked the message maybe, and it's sitting in a Junk EMail type of folder ?

[Elektra]

No, the junk mail folder is empty and there are now 2 mails displayed in MW which will not come down. And that's just as strange because in both cases they are from my ISP and yet, he sent a 3rd which did come down.

[rusticdog]

That doesn't sound like Outlook and MW are setup the same.

Are you certain emails sent to the secondary account are arriving on the primary ?

[Elektra]

No I'm not sure that the mails are being redirected. I sent 3 tests to that address and they all arrived on the server. I then tried downloading them in Outlook. 2 were received while the 3rd is still on there and I can't seem to do anything that will make the remaining mails download. I will phone my ISP again.

[Elektra]

Well I don't understand an effing thing! In MW's configuration the POP3 server is entered as pop.nordnet.fr and as I have been saying all along, MW has no problem logging-in to their server and I can see the messages. I have just got off the phone to Nordnet's technicians again and they tell me the reason Outlook would not download the mails was because I should have used pop3.nordnet.fr. So I asked him "Why is it that Mailwasher can login and see the messages using pop.nordnet.fr?" He replied "That's impossible, sir."

Incidentally, using pop3.nordnet.fr the mails still would not download. He says that is because they are now considered old messages. The reason I received others was because they were sent after the redirect had been put in place.

[rusticdog]

Right.

So the secondary account is still accessible, but as you don't know the password you can't put that account into Outlook, and pull in those rogue emails.

But new emails sent are now being redirected to the primary.

pop3.nordnet.fr and pop.nordnet.fr are one in the same, both redirect to the same IP address.

That kind of leaves things back near the beginning. You've got a password in MW for an account that you know works, but can't extract.