My email account says "login failed."

Becky, I am having the same issues and it's been going on for a little while now. When I open my Mail in the morning there is a connection error for my three Gmail accounts. Sometimes a message pops up asking me to authenticate the Gmail account in Safari. Sometimes it doesn't. When I click on the Connection doctor it says that Mail is unable to login with my credentials. But I KNOW that my credentials are correct! Nonetheless, I have removed my Gmail accounts and reconnected them successfully and then they will work for a while. However, eventually the login problem reappears and I have to reconnect again. And again.

There is definitely a problem here between Mac Mail and Gmail but I am not sure if it's at Mac end or Gmail end. People are complaining about this issue in the Google forums as well but so far no-one has come up with a solution.

This is very tedious and annoying!

Hi there iteachmusic,

Thanks for using the Apple Support Communities. I understand you’re having some issues using your Gmail account with Mac Mail. I’ll be happy to help with this.

First, if you only want to use Gmail, not iCloud, that’s fine. To ensure you don’t have iCloud enabled, open up System Preferences > Internet Accounts then select iCloud from the group and make sure Mail is not checked.

Once you’ve done that, take a look at this article for what to do if you’re getting the Login Failed message due to a password issue on your Gmail account: 

If you can’t send or receive email on your Mac

This link provides some helpful info regarding the issues you’re running into as well:

Troubleshoot email problems in Mail on Mac 

Best wishes.

This issue just started to arise with me as well. The login failed message will pop up and my Gmail will be offline. However, if I quit the mail app then launch it again the message will be gone and the mailbox will function properly for a while until it inevitably happens again...

kcpa wrote:

People are complaining about this issue in the Google forums as well but so far no-one has come up with a solution.

This looks like the thread https://support.google.com/mail/thread/4001396?hl=en

I've been experiencing this same problem first on my Mac Desktop and now on my MacBook Pro. It is very frustrating. I hope that Apple Support will come up with a solution to resolve this issue very soon.

Becky, I use mail on my mac with yahoo, gmail, and bluehost (my website). This year, these are the issues: 1) "login failed" showed this morning, then disappeared. Things ran as usual, maybe, I can't tell. 2) At the bottom is "Saving 1 or 51 Drafts 916.9 MB" I don't know what it means. Same message for several days. 3) When I click the envelope ("Get new messages for all accounts") the getting new message does not appear at bottom left. 4) Other days, "Moving Messages" error freezes in bottom left in place of "Saving . . " error.

I have plowed through tons of blogs and online discussions, including the two sites above that you recommended. Some support people go into restarting in safe mode -- my eyes blur.

Do you have advice?

Is Apple working on a fix?

Bob Kruse

I spoke with Apple support and apparently it’s a known problem that they are working on. I decide to remove my Gmail accounts from Mail and just use Gmail directly now.