Gmail's account activity reveals browser details now
Google back in 2008 added a feature to its Gmail email service that displays the recent access history on the Gmail homepage after sign in. Here you'd be presented with a table revealing the last times someone accessed the Gmail account, where that someone originated from, and which access type has been used to access the data.
Looking at the data alone makes it possible to determine whether an unauthorized user - or device - got access to the Gmail account. About two years later, Google added warning notifications to the activity reporting to inform users about possible account breaches. If you are for instance always logging in from the US, and Gmail suddenly notices a sign in from Russia, Germany or Brazil, then the warning message may be displayed to warn you about that.
The idea here is to provide you with the means to secure your account if the activity is indeed not authorized. The first step would be to change the account password, remove or change any application passwords, and make sure that no one installed forwarding or filter rules without your approval.
A new feature has been added to Gmail's Account information report recently. Previously, access type only displayed general information like browser, pop3 or mobile which often is not enough to identify devices or programs. Pop3 for instance can mean Thunderbird, Outlook or any other email client using Pop3 connections while browser gives no indication about the browser or operating system used.
The new feature displays detailed information, taken from the header information sent by browsers, including the name of the browser and its version, and the operating system used.
To get there open the Gmail homepage and locate the details link at the very bottom of the main page. This opens the activity information window. Here you see the list of recent activities. To display browser information, click on the show details button here.
The information displayed here can provide you with important information about the system a connection was made on. Keep in mind that it is possible to fake user agents so do not put all your trust in the display either. If values differ you can however be certain that someone else gained access to your Gmail account. In this case, make sure you secure your account properly to block future access to the account.
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You said that Outlook isn’t your main email client, so which is your main one?
I think its thunderbird
It is Mozilla Thunderbird.
Awesome! This actually solved my problem… what a stupid bug.
If this is the same bug that I’ve encountered, there may be another fix: (1) hover over open Outlook item in Taskbar, cursor up to hover over Outlook window item, and right-click; (2) this should give you Restore / Move / Size / Minimize / Maximize — choose Move or Size; (3) use your cursor keys, going arbitrarily N/S/E/W, to try to move or size the Outlook window back into view. Basically, the app behaves as though it were open in a 0x0 window, or at a location that’s offscreen, and this will frequently work to resize and/or move the window. Don’t forget to close while resized/moved, so that Outlook remembers the size/position for next time.
THANK YOU Claude!!! I could get the main window to launch but could not get any other message window to show on the desktop. You are my hero!!!!
Solved my issue! 6 years later and this is still problem…
Fantastic. Thank you. Size did the trick.
This solved my Outlook problem, too. Thank you. :)
Thank you so much, this started happening to me today and was causing big problems. You are a life saver, I hope I can help you in some way some day.
You are a god – thank you!
thanks a lot…. work like charm.. :-)
Yah…thanks Claude. I’ve been having the same problem and tried all the suggestions…your solution was the answer. It had resized itself to a 0/0 box. Cheers
Excellent post. This had me baffled even trying to accurately describe the problem. This fixed it for me.
Thank you
Thanks a lot for the article. Don’t know why it happenend, don’t know how it got fixed, but it was really annoying and now it works :-)
Thanks a lot. I was facing this issue from past 3 week. I tried everything but no resolution. The issue was happening intermittently and mainly when I was changing the display of screen ( as i use 2 monitors). The only option i had was to do system restore. But thanks to you.
I’ve been tried to sole this problem for 12hours. Your comment about changing the display of screen helped me a lot!! Thanks!!
Thank you…don’t know why this happened but your instructions helped me fix it. Running Windows 10 and office pro 2007
Great tip! Thanks!
Worked for me, too – thank you!!!
It’s Worked for me, too
thank you very much!
I had a similar issue with Outlook 2013 on Windows 10 and this helped me to fix it. Thank you very much!
Thank you so much. Solved!
Considering you published this in 2012, incredible not been debugged by Microsoft.
Thank you again. M
This problem was faced by only one user logging to TS 2008 r2 using outlook 2010.The issue was resolved.
Thanks.
Great tip. Thank you!!!! If it helps, I had to use the Control Key and the arrow keys at the same time to bring my window back into view. Worked like a charm.
Thank you, this worked !!!!
Man, you are a fucking god. Thanks a lot, what an annoying bug!!
Awesome, this post solved the issue. Many thanks!