IMAP Node 'LOGIN failed' to Outlook.com despite credentials working in other clients

[ofgeva]

Hello,

I am experiencing a persistent “LOGIN failed” error with the IMAP node when connecting to a personal Working... account. I have gone through extensive debugging and have confirmed this is not a user or environment error.

Summary:

• n8n Version: 1.107.4
• Node.js Version(s) Tested: v22.18.0 and v20.x.x (LTS)
• Error Message: LOGIN failed.

Debugging Steps Confirmed:

• Credentials (Email + App Password) work perfectly in the Thunderbird email client.
• The server where n8n is self-hosted can connect successfully using openssl s_client -connect ``outlook.office365.com:993. The network and firewall are not the issue.
• No proxy is configured (env | grep -i proxy is empty).
• The error persists even when starting n8n with NODE_TLS_REJECT_UNAUTHORIZED=0.
• The error persists on a brand new, clean workflow with a single IMAP node and a freshly created credential and app password.

This appears to be a bug or incompatibility within the IMAP node’s underlying library. Any help would be appreciated.

[mohamed3nan]

welcome to the @ofgeva community!

Yes, I can confirm it’s not working in this case with Outlook/Hotmail credentials.

You can open a GitHub issue to report this behavior.

n8n-io/n8n

I think the “Microsoft Outlook Trigger” node could be an alternative option, regardless of the steps for the application/azure things/authentication, especially if you’re self-hosting..