Email Integration - Zoho CRM - OAuth and IMAP

Email Integration - Zoho CRM - OAuth and IMAP

Hello,

We are attempting to integrate our Microsoft 365 email with Zoho CRM. We are using the documentation at Email Configuration for IMAP and POP3 (zoho.com)

We use Microsoft 365 and per their recommendations (and requirements) for secure email we have disabled basic authentication. Per our Exchange authentication policy (Get-AuthenticationPolicy) assigned to users, the following is set.

AllowBasicAuthActiveSync
 False
AllowBasicAuthAutodiscover
 False
AllowBasicAuthImap
 False
AllowBasicAuthMapi 
 False
AllowBasicAuthPop                  
 False
AllowBasicAuthSmtp                 
 False
AllowBasicAuthWebServices          
 False
AllowBasicAuthPowershell           
 False

Per the documentation at Enable or disable SMTP AUTH in Exchange Online | Microsoft Learn - It looks like if we disable BasicAuthSMTP, it also disables SMTP AUTH. Per the first note on that page.
  1. If your authentication policy disables basic authentication for SMTP, clients cannot use the SMTP AUTH protocol even if you enable the settings outlined in this article. For more information, see Disable Basic authentication in Exchange Online.
All this is to say, when we attempt to follow the steps of Email Configuration for IMAP and POP3 (zoho.com), when we sign in with the OAUTH based configuration, we receive an error. 



I suspect because yes you are using the OAUTH method of signing in, so we don't need to do app passwords, but it is still using the underlying POP/IMAP, which seems to be disabled.

Is anyone else that has the security defaults enabled able to successfully integrate their Office 365 email with Zoho CRM without creating IMAP/POP exceptions for their users?


Info
Moderation Update (29th July 2025):
We are happy to announce that the email configuration for Microsoft Graph API is available in Early Access for users in all DCs except EU and IN. If your account is not in the IN or EU DC, you can write to our support or add a comment to have this enabled for your account.
Read more on the same:
Email Configuration for Microsoft Graph API