Mail & Yahoo Mail Sending problems

Hello all, I have finally admitted defeat. I have been using Apple Mail to pick up my Yahoo Mail for a long time without any issues. Suddenly it has decided to not send emails...and I have no idea why.

I got the settings off of Yahoo's site. The pop.mail.yahoo.co.uk settings work but it seems that the smtp settings are the ones creating the issues. Currently they are smtp.mail.yahoo.co.uk / server port 465 / SSL checked and authenicating with a password. I have used the connection doctor and it says that both incoming and outgoing connections are good.

Anyway, after trawling through the forums on Yahoo and here I have tried deleting all prefs, re-inputting all of the above information. No joy. I have tried changing the port to 587. No joy. I have tried turning off SSL and switching to port 110. No juice.

I have tried the same settings in Entourage but that doesn't work either. So, I am now throwing myself at these boards to see if someone - anyone - has a solution that doesn't require a stamp and an envelope.

Man, I can build and rig straight down the pipe but I can't send an email! Hummph.

Intel Imac and ibook g4, Mac OS X (10.4.8)

Posted on Mar 19, 2008 2:51 PM

Reply
11 replies

Mar 20, 2008 2:52 AM in response to Kappy

Kappy, thank you for the reply.

After reading numerous tech support forums both here and at Yahoo:

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=828731&tstart=0

...just as an example, I understand it to be either a Mac issue or a Mail issue.

Also, I have regular Mail not Mail Plus. They both support pop mail but if I were to place plus in front of my smtp.mail.yahoo.co.uk wouldn't that access a different server?

Just a thought.
M

Mar 20, 2008 5:37 AM in response to MrShev

You need the Plus (i.e. not free) mail for POP client access to the smtp server. This is a change on Yahoo's end to drive plus service subscriptions.

See this page:

http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/mail/original/mailplus/overview/overview-03.htm l

Note that free Yahoo mail has a "No" under POP access. Clearly, you can access the mail server, but not the smtp server which is needed to send mail from a POP client. So, you'll need to upgrade to the Plus service, use webmail for Yahoo, or get yourself a Gmail account, which does allow free access to their smtp server.

Hope this helps...

Apr 20, 2008 11:32 AM in response to Leigh Hounsome

As far as I can make out, free yahoo mail in the UK is still okay for POP access. The UK yahoo site definitely says so - check this comparison table between Mail and Mail Plus:

http://uk.docs.yahoo.com/mail/plus/info/

However, I have been having similar trouble sending mail - long wait in outbox then that smtp message, but the messages would go eventually, usually when I quit mail and reopened. So I looked at the port for outgoing mail, which I had set at 25 (I assume that's what was advised originally when I set the thing up over a year ago), and found it to be listed now as 587:

http://help.yahoo.com/l/uk/yahoo/mail/yahoomail/pop/pop-14.html

I changed this and things seem to have improved but its early days. I still don't know if I should tick the SSL box - anyone know?

Apr 21, 2008 1:09 PM in response to MrShev

Hi

I too am having problems sending email from my Yahoo accounts. I contacted Yahoo support and they sent me this to try.

1. Launch the "Terminal" application located in the "Applications:
Utilities" folder.
2. At the text prompt, type "telnet pop.mail.yahoo.co.uk 110" and press
the "Enter/Return" key. If you're successful, you should now see "+OK
hello from popgate." If you don't see this, close the window and start
over or check your Internet or network connection to make sure you're
logged on.
3. From this screen, type "user xxx" (where xxx is your Yahoo! ID) and
press "Enter/Return." You should be prompted with "+OK password
required."
4. Type "pass yyy" (where yyy is your case-sensitive password) and press
"Enter/Return." If this is successful, you should receive a prompt with
"+OK maildrop ready," followed by mailbox details. If this was not
successful, you'll receive "-ERR Error logging in. Please visit
http://ymailuk.com/."
5. Type "quit" and press "Enter" to sign off the POP server.
6. Type "exit" and press "Enter" to return to Windows.
If you weren't able to get the POP authentication during the first try,
please wait a few minutes and try again. After several tries, you should
be able to tell if your ID and password will allow you to achieve POP
authentication.
Next, check if you are able to communicate with the Yahoo! Mail Plus
SMTP server. Here's how:
1. Launch the "Terminal" application located in the "OS X Applications:
Utilities" folder.
2. At the text prompt, type "telnet smtp.mail.yahoo.co.uk 25" and press
the "Enter/Return" key. If the port is not blocked, you should receive a
response similar to "220 smtpxxx.mail.yahoo.co.uk ESMTP" (where "xxx" is
the server number you connected to). If you don't receive this specific
response or if you get a different response, your ISP, networking
equipment, or security software may be blocking or scanning outgoing
mail servers.
NOTE: Please also try port 587 in place of 25. It's important that you
try the alternate port, as some ISPs will block port 25 by default.
Though it does mention Mail Plus in the instructions and I don't have MailPlus I was able to connect using port 587 to the SMTP Server.

Apr 25, 2008 5:51 AM in response to MrShev

As far as I can see this is solvable but yahoo are really untransparent about whether you have to upgrade to mail plus. Some yahoo pages say you have to. Others just give you the pop settings and make no mention of mail plus. So are they just trying to dupe you into getting mail plus?

I had the same problem when I had to reinstall my OS. Before this I was using apple mail with my yahoo account no probs. On reinstallation I had to redo the pop settings on apple mail again. Receiving mail was no problem but the yahoo smtp server wouldn't accept my password for sending mail. I also thought this was something to do with yahoo forcing you to upgrade to yahoo mail plus.

I followed Mark Jones's directions and checked through terminal. I found the smtp server would let me log on only through port 587, not 25 as per Mark's first suggestion and not 465 as per yahoo's instructions. But using apple mail with 587 still didn't work as that port is apparently not SSL enabled. So when I disabled SSL in apple mail, message sending worked.

I'd recommend using terminal to check which ports work for you.

Apr 25, 2008 7:49 AM in response to Ziryab

Since the initial Response from Yahoo with the Telnet instructions I have not heard anything back. I have tried port 587 without SSL and it works, however I do not feel comfortable having my password sent unencrypted. I suppose I'll have to live with it for now, but I don't understand why they can't have SSL over port 587! It is what GMail uses.

Mark

Apr 28, 2008 11:14 AM in response to MrShev

I've tried everything on this thread but I still can't send mail from my Yahoo account through Mail, so I'm switching to Google Mail. It's a shame as there is lots about Yahoo Mail that I like, and plenty about Google Mail that I don't like, but having recently tried the new 'Safari-friendly' version of Yahoo I have found that to be full of bugs and very unfriendly indeed so perhaps they're losing it altogether.

This thread has been closed by the system or the community team. You may vote for any posts you find helpful, or search the Community for additional answers.

Mail & Yahoo Mail Sending problems

Welcome to Apple Support Community
A forum where Apple customers help each other with their products. Get started with your Apple Account.