diff --git a/pyproject.toml b/pyproject.toml
index e47c598..07d7d02 100644
--- a/pyproject.toml
+++ b/pyproject.toml
@@ -4,7 +4,7 @@ build-backend = "hatchling.build"
 
 [project]
 name = "aiomail"
-version = "0.1.0"
+version = "0.1.1"
 description = "async IMAP one-time-code retrieval with password/OAuth2 auth and dynamic matching"
 requires-python = ">=3.10"
 dependencies = [
diff --git a/src/aiomail/__init__.py b/src/aiomail/__init__.py
index 1a66e99..e795b29 100644
--- a/src/aiomail/__init__.py
+++ b/src/aiomail/__init__.py
@@ -29,4 +29,4 @@ __all__ = [
     "DEFAULT_FOLDERS",
 ]
 
-__version__ = "0.1.0"
+__version__ = "0.1.1"
diff --git a/src/aiomail/auth.py b/src/aiomail/auth.py
index 4c725b8..7601966 100644
--- a/src/aiomail/auth.py
+++ b/src/aiomail/auth.py
@@ -38,6 +38,15 @@ class PasswordAuth:
             raise RuntimeError(f"login failed: {result} {data}")
 
 
+def _as_str(token) -> str:
+    """coerce a token to str (a provider may hand back bytes)
+
+    both XOAUTH2 entrypoints downstream need a str (one .encode()s it, the SASL
+    builder interpolates it), so normalize here rather than crashing on bytes.
+    """
+    return token.decode() if isinstance(token, bytes) else token
+
+
 def _sasl_xoauth2(user: str, token: str) -> str:
     """build the base64 XOAUTH2 SASL initial-response string"""
     raw = f"user={user}\x01auth=Bearer {token}\x01\x01".encode()
@@ -71,8 +80,8 @@ class OAuth2Auth:
             token = await result if hasattr(result, "__await__") else result
             if not token:
                 raise RuntimeError("token provider returned an empty token")
-            return token
-        return self._token  # type: ignore[return-value]
+            return _as_str(token)
+        return _as_str(self._token)  # type: ignore[arg-type]
 
     async def authenticate(self, mail) -> None:
         token = await self._resolve_token()
diff --git a/src/aiomail/client.py b/src/aiomail/client.py
index 0228ba2..376b2c6 100644
--- a/src/aiomail/client.py
+++ b/src/aiomail/client.py
@@ -138,7 +138,14 @@ class IMAPClient:
             return []
         if result != "OK" or not data or not data[0]:
             return []
-        ids = [int(x) for x in data[0].split()]
+        ids = []
+        for token in data[0].split():
+            try:
+                ids.append(int(token))
+            except (TypeError, ValueError):
+                # tolerate a malformed/non-numeric token in the SEARCH response
+                # instead of crashing the whole search
+                log.debug("skipping non-numeric search token: %r", token)
         return sorted(set(ids), reverse=True)
 
     async def fetch(self, email_id: int, *, icloud: bool = False) -> Optional[email.message.Message]: