Email Settings for Amcrest IP Surveillance Cameras

I have several Amcrest IP cameras that I use for surveillance of my homes.  They've been pretty dependable, and were the first good IP cameras that came out when I first started using them (they were first named Foscam cameras, and I started using them over 10 years ago before all the newer IP/surveillance cameras came out).  I have a 10-year old or older Foscam in one storage facility that sends me email alerts and video over a Freedompop hotspot (cell data) connection, which has been pretty nice.  If  you don't  know what Freedompop is, don't worry -- they just got sold to tello or some other cell phone MVNO.

The cameras have been pretty reliable, and one great thing is that I can use them without knowing all the details of my router's IP address.  I no longer have to set port forwarding on my router.  In one remote area where I have a garage, I have a TP-Link WISP router that takes a Comcast wifi hotspot signal (I have a Comcast account at home) and creates its own wifi network in the garage.  I have an Amcrest camera set up there and its worked well.  I can watch the network feed live if I want to through the amcrestview.com portal, and it's set up to detect motion and send me email alerts.  It has all kinds of features but the technical support is not good at all, nor are the web and phone app interfaces.

About a month ago, my Amcrest cameras stopped sending email alerts.  I spent a couple of hours troubleshooting them and trying to find a solution.  The Amcrest forums suck, they seem old and don't have information.  So here's a solution that I found today (by chatting with an Amcrest salesman on their website).  I'm posting the solutions here on my blog for other Amcrest users.

Why doesn't Amcrest have a web page or forum that describes email settings that WORK?!

Gmail: Sending emails using a Gmail account no longer seems to work, as of about June 1, 2019.
GMX: I've never been able to get my gmx email account to work.
AOL: I used to be able to use an AOL account for Amcrest email alerts, but that stopped about four years ago.  AOL also stopped allowing folks to forward emails from their account, which made me stop using my AOL account (for another reason, which I can't remember).

Comcast: Sending emails using a Comcast account does work.  You have to have a Comcast account.  Use SSL and port 465.

Here's what the Amcrest chat person wrote.  His instructions worked but he left out one important goddamn item.

"please create a Yahoo account and go to the Account Info > Account Security > Generate Password

"Please use the same app password (make sure you use the spaces after each 4 characters) that is generated in your email settings and check if you are still facing this issue.  [I did not need to do this and just used my usual Yahoo email password]

SMTP: smtp.mail.yahoo.com
Authentication: TLS
Port: 587
Username: ********@yahoo.com
Password: (The App password)
Sender: ********@yahoo.com
Recipient: ********@gmail.com"

Well, the above did not work for me at first.  The Amcrest rep left out this important item:

Go to Yahoo email security settings and
Allow apps that use less secure sign in in your new yahoo account.
go to the Account Info > Account Security > Allow apps that use less secure sign in

Check the slider in the box to allow this.  

Yahoo states: Some non-Yahoo apps and devices use less secure sign-in technology, which could leave your account vulnerable. You can turn off access (which we recommend) or choose to use them despite the risks.

This finally worked!