Google says app passwords aren't available for my account - even with 2-Step on

You are setting up Gmail for Otto, you get as far as Google's app passwords page, and Google stops you with a screen that reads "App passwords the setting you are looking for is not available for your account". What makes it maddening is that you already did the thing everyone told you to do: "even though I have 2-Step already set". Nothing is broken in Booked Solid, and there is nothing to fix inside the app yet. That screen is Google switching the App Passwords feature off for one specific Google account, and it does that in two situations even when 2-Step Verification is on.

You are in the right place if

• "When I try to connect to my business account it says the setting you are looking for is not available for your account", while the same steps worked fine on another address of yours.
• "I can't find app passwords in my Google account" at all. The page does not appear for you.
• Someone told you the answer is 2-Step Verification and you have had it on for months.
• You did get a code, but on the wrong mailbox: "I was able to create an app pw for my personal email but that's not the one to monitor", and then "I followed your steps using the 16 char code and my business address but Otto still acts the same way".

All of those end at the same short list of causes below. An app password not available is a decision Google made about one account. It is not a Booked Solid setting, and no amount of reinstalling, restarting or reconnecting inside the app can reach it.

Before anything else: check which Google account you are signed in as

Google's security settings are per account, not per person. Turning on 2-Step Verification for your personal Gmail does nothing for your business Gmail. This is the real cause more often than people expect, and it is invisible from the outside, because you genuinely do have 2-Step on somewhere.

One performer told us he had 2-Step already set, and he did. It was on his personal address. The business address he actually wanted Otto to watch had no second step at all, so Google kept hiding the app passwords page for it. Adding a second step to the business account was the whole fix.

So before you change anything: go to myaccount.google.com/security signed in as the exact address you want Otto to work in, and read what that page says about that account and no other.

Cause 1: your only second step is a passkey or a security key

App Passwords needs a phone number (text or call) or an Authenticator app as a second step. A passkey on its own is not enough, and neither is a physical security key on its own, even though both of them count as 2-Step Verification everywhere else in Google. This is the usual cause, and it is a quick fix.

1. Go to myaccount.google.com/security, signed in as the account you want Otto to work in.
2. Open 2-Step Verification under How you sign in to Google.
3. Look at the second steps listed there. If the only ones you see are a passkey or a security key, add a phone number (text or call), or set up an Authenticator app.
4. Go back to myaccount.google.com/apppasswords. It will let you create one now. Name it Booked Solid and copy the 16-character code Google gives you.

Cause 2: the account is in Google's Advanced Protection Program

If that security page tells you the account is enrolled in Advanced Protection, that is what is blocking you. Advanced Protection turns app passwords off entirely, by design, and no change to your 2-Step methods will bring the page back.

Do not switch Advanced Protection off to get around this. We would rather route your mail differently than have you lower the protection on your own account. Reply to the help desk, say that Advanced Protection is what you see, and we will take a different mail route with you.

The trap right after this one: an app password belongs to one Google account

Almost everyone who clears the step above walks straight into this one, and from the outside it looks like the app is broken. It is not. An app password is tied to the single Google account that created it. You cannot create the code on your personal Gmail and use it to connect your business Gmail. Gmail keeps refusing a password that belongs to a different account, so Check it keeps answering "The mail server refused that sign-in" no matter how carefully you retype it. When a Gmail account still refuses the sign-in after everything else looks right, this is nearly always why.

The fix is to redo the app password while signed in as the right account.

1. In your browser, switch to the Google account you want Otto to work in. If you have several signed in at once, use the account switcher or a separate browser window so there is no doubt which one you are on.
2. Create a fresh app password at myaccount.google.com/apppasswords and name it Booked Solid. Do not reuse the code from the other address, and do not edit the old one.
3. In Booked Solid, go to More > Connections > Mail & calendars, click Edit on that email account, paste the fresh 16 characters into the password field, and click Save.
4. Back on that account's row, press Check it. It should answer "Connected - the address and password work." If it still says "The mail server refused that sign-in", the code is from the wrong account. Redo step 2 while signed in as the right one.

If you run more than one inbox

Each Gmail needs its own app password. There is no sharing one code across two brands, because each code only ever unlocks the account that made it. Add each inbox separately under Mail & calendars, each with its own name, purpose tag and its own 16-character code. When more than one is connected, Otto will not guess which one you mean: name the address when you ask him to work in mail, or he will come back and ask you which one.

Finish the connection in Booked Solid

1. Open More > Connections and scroll to Mail & calendars.
2. Click Add an email account. The method already defaults to Any email (IMAP), which is the right one for Gmail. Leave it there.
3. Give the account a name you will recognise and pick its purpose tag: bookings, personal, support or business.
4. Enter your Gmail address.
5. Type imap.gmail.com into the mail server field. Nothing fills that in for you, and a blank server fails the check. It is the same server whether your address ends in @gmail.com or is a Google Workspace address on your own domain, like you@yourband.com. Leave the outgoing server and port empty: Otto reads your mail and writes replies into your own Gmail Drafts folder, so nothing on this card ever sends.
6. Paste the 16-character app password. Google shows the code as four blocks of four; the app strips those spaces for you, so a straight paste is fine.
7. Click Save. The account now appears in the list with its own Check it button. Press it and read the line it puts under the account: "Connected - the address and password work." is the one you want.

Saving a Gmail inbox for the first time switches on the Gmail (app password) connection under Tool access for you. That switch will not move before the inbox exists, and that is deliberate rather than a bug: with no inbox saved it has nothing to point at, so it refuses and shows a line telling you to add your Gmail under Mail & calendars first. Add the inbox first and the switch stops fighting you.

If a chat was already open while you did all this, click Start fresh and ask again in the new conversation. A session that was already running does not pick up a connection you added halfway through. If a fresh chat still cannot see it, fully quit the app and reopen it once.

The dead end to walk away from: the Approve Gmail card

If Otto offers you a card that says you need to approve the Gmail connection on your Claude account, and tapping it opens the claude.ai connectors page, that is the old linked-account route. It is not the connection you set up here. Tap Not now. Approving there does nothing for the app-password path, and that route is the one that keeps dropping out during background work, which is the reason to be on app passwords in the first place.

On app versions before 1.11.13, Otto could bounce app-password users back to that card whenever a Gmail call hiccupped, which sent several people around the same loop for days. Version 1.11.13 made a saved app-password inbox the Gmail path outright, so that loop is gone by design. If you are still seeing it, update the app at booked.kivimedia.co/download and then use Start fresh.

If it still does not work

Email bookedsolid@kivimedia.freshdesk.com with two specific things and a person will pick it up: which of the two situations the Google security page shows you (only a passkey or security key, or Advanced Protection), and the exact wording Check it gives on that email account. Those two lines are enough to tell whether we are fixing a password, a Google setting, or moving you to a different mail route entirely.