My Verizon email account has suddenly stopped working. The problem appears to be with an unrecognizable password. However, I can successfully check my email using the webmail address mail.aol.com. I've changed passwords, reset Macmail, and checked settings numerous times with no success. Please help! Thank you, Apple community!
Macbook (2015 or later)
Deleting and adding back the account is a troubleshooting method that works quite often, but not always. I doubt the problem is a virus. Something is wacky at AOL or the account became corrupted in Mail.
If you forward to a new Gmail account, your mother won' be able to send from her Verizon address. To set up forwarding, log onto the AOL website, access your account by clicking Options at the top right under the email address, and then select Mail Settings. There is a forward option there.
Have you tried setting up another admin user account and see if the email address will work there? Have you tried in the Safe mode?
This is the kind of problem best handled by someone who can inspect your settings on site. We would not want to mislead you here, since the content of the old emails is essential to be kept. You need someone who is familiar with both POP and IMAP settings and their differences. I do such services where I live. You probably will need to log in the email directly on the web browser to see what the preferences are, and if all the email you desire is on the web browser version of the email.
If it isn't, then you will want to go to folder in the Go menu of the Finder and select ~/Library as the folder to go to.
Then copy the folders of both Mail and Mail downloads to the Desktop (leaving the originals in the ~/Library folder).
This will allow you to reimport the messages that are on the computer after reconfiguring the email software properly. Mail will reimport from its menu mailboxes using its Mail menu -> Import Mailboxes command when done.
Any messages still residing in webmail are safe.
Thank you for your response. However, I've tried this and I am still having problems. When I begin the setup and enter in the email address and password (which, again, DOES work with webmail), it responds with "Unable to verify account name or password". I am completely stumped. I've also tried using Thunderbird, and I get the same type of error in it being unable to recognize the password.
Hi a brody,
Thanks again for your response! Yeah, this Verizon to AOL migration has been a mess. (Why did they do this in the first place?!)
I'm actually writing this on behalf of my elderly mother, who INSISTS on keeping her verizon.net email address. Could you explain in a little more detail how to do the forwarding to gmail? Do I need to create a new gmail address for her first? (Sorry to sound like a dummy, but this problem is destroying what few brain cells I have left -- haha!)
I've just received a reply from AOL advising me to delete the email account from my mom's computer and then re-establish it. However, when I begin the process, MacMail is warning me that all information will be lost. Does that include all downloaded email in her Inbox and saved folders? If so, then that is NOT an option. Thanks for your continued help as my frustration grows . . .
Hi a brody,
Thank you SO much with your continued advice here! I'll try the reset with your instructions. But before I start, I'd like to ask two additional questions: 1) Because I'm not able to add my mom's account to my computer or even create it with Thunderbird (since MacMail and Thunderbird both give me password error messages), do you think AOL's recommendation to delete and re-establish will even work? and 2) Do you think this problem was caused by a virus, or just something wacky that happened at AOL?
Charlie
Hi Eric,
Thanks for chiming in! I'll try the reset, because at this point I have nothing else to lose, although I'd be more confident about doing this if I had been successful establishing her account on my computer or Thunderbird.
And thanks for quelling my virus fears, too!
Take care,
Charlie
Hi Eric and a brody,
Here's the latest: I was able to delete the email account, but could not re-establish it. Again, MacMail seemed to "instantly" reject the password. Do you think the problem may be with the passwords in Keychain? Maybe it would be worth deleting all passwords associated with the account? (I have sent another question to AOL, but I'm not holding my breath for a worthwhile response.)
Thanks again,
Charlie
You are welcome. I have Verizon email at AOL and it does act strangely at times.
Verizon’s tech support for email has over a half hour on hold. My advice for customers when I come across this, is to shift to gmail, and use webmail settings for your verizon account to forward messages to gmail. If you have comcast, that works better for email than Verizon. As you see the problem started last April. For some the settings work. For others their firewall or modem is blocking the ports that allow email to work. It is a real pain to deal with this migration of Verizon to AOL. But suffice it to say you aren’t the first Mac or PC user who gave up on the settings.
You are welcome. Deleting the passwords from Keychain Access is worth a try and won't hurt anything.
Verizon email not working with MacMail
