Gmail IMAP connection failing in PHP - stream won't open

Other Questions Gmail
1

I’m having trouble connecting to Gmail using PHP’s IMAP functions. My script keeps failing when trying to establish the connection. Here’s what I’m working with:

$server = '{imap.gmail.com:993/imap/ssl/novalidate-cert}INBOX';
$email = '[email protected]';
$pass = 'mypassword';
$connection = imap_open($server, $email, $pass) or die(imap_last_error());

Every time I run this code, I get an error message saying it couldn’t open the stream to the Gmail IMAP server. The error mentions something about login being aborted. I’m not sure if this is related to SSL configuration or if there’s something wrong with my connection string. I’ve double checked my credentials and they’re correct. Has anyone else run into this issue with Gmail IMAP connections? What am I missing here?

2

That login error is usually Gmail blocking what it thinks are insecure access attempts. Yeah, generate an app password like others mentioned, but also check that IMAP is actually turned on in your Gmail settings - look under Forwarding and POP/IMAP. I wasted hours last year debugging my connection string when IMAP wasn’t even enabled. Once you’ve got authentication working, ditch the novalidate-cert flag. You’ll want proper certificate validation for production anyway.

3

i had the same problem! you def need to use an app password instead of your regular one for imap. check your google account settings for that. also, make sure you’re using valid certs for better security. hope this helps!