Why is my email software asking to allow AVAST SSL certificate?

What Is Happening and Why?

The pop-up you are seeing is expected behavior from the Avast Mail Shield feature. Mail Shield scans all incoming and outgoing email messages in real-time for malicious content, including emails sent over SSL/TLS encrypted connections.

To perform this scanning, Mail Shield uses a secure interception method — it temporarily replaces the mail server's SSL certificate with its own certificate, scans the email content for threats, and then re-encrypts and forwards the message to the mail server. This is a standard and safe antivirus SSL inspection process.

The certificate you observed is a normal, automatically generated ~90-day rolling certificate created by Avast Mail Shield. This is by design and will not cause any issues with your email communication.

The pop-up appears because your email client does not yet have the Avast Mail Shield certificate in its trusted certificate store. Clicking "Yes" is safe as a temporary measure, but we recommend following the steps below for a permanent resolution.

Permanent Fix: Export and Import the Mail Shield Certificate

Step 1 — Export the Certificate from Avast

1. Open Avast Antivirus on the affected device.

2. Go to Menu ☰ → Settings.

3. Click Search in the top-right corner.

4. Type geek:area and press ENTER.

5. Scroll to the Mail Shield section and confirm that "Scan SSL connections" is enabled.

6. Click Perform next to "Export certificate".

7. Save the file to a known location (e.g., Desktop).

8. Click OK in the confirmation dialog.

Step 2 — Import the Certificate into Your Email Client

For Mozilla Thunderbird / SeaMonkey:

1. Go to ☰ Menu → Settings → Privacy & Security.

2. Scroll to Certificates → click Manage Certificates…

3. Select the Authorities tab → click Import…

4. Select the exported certificate file → click Open.

5. Tick "Trust this CA to identify websites" → click OK.

6. Switch to the Servers tab — if any entry for "Avast Mail Scanner" exists, delete it.

7. Click OK to save.

For Microsoft Outlook:

Outlook uses the Windows certificate store, which Avast normally populates automatically.

If the pop-up continues to appear in Outlook, please try the following:

1. Uninstall Avast Antivirus and restart the device.

2. Verify the issue is no longer present in Outlook.

3. Reinstall Avast Antivirus and restart the device again.

This process re-registers the Mail Shield certificate correctly in the Windows certificate store.