Apple Mail – account “Status: Offline”

Hello, I managed to solve the problem!!

I followed these instructions: https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/6010255 – "Change account access for less secure apps". I'm not sure why Apple Mail is a "less secure app" when using POP than IMAP, since IMAP is primarily about syncing, isn't it? Someone in the Apple chat told me that I was wrong to refer to POP as the "minority choice" as a lot of people still use POP, especially people not using Gmail, Hotmail, etc. So why is POP less secure?

Apple Mail is now working properly. When I drag an email to a folder, it goes to the folder. It doesn't ping back into the main inbox. The annoying "Important" folder (bizarre collection of so-called important emails that does not seem to have any logic) has now disappeared. And if I look at emails in Safari on my phone (before they are downloaded to my MacBook), they are simple and clear – not weird, chaotic email trails showing emails in non-chronological order (and all other kinds of weirdness that used to happen).

Very happy to be back with POP and not IMAP!

Thanks BDAqua and Barney-15E for help and advice.

This is driving my crazy. All because I had a small problem with Mail when I got a new Macbook in 2016, and a so-called "genius" in an Apple store "fixed" the problem by – without telling me exactly what they were doing – changing the Mail from POP to IMAP, when I didn't want to use IMAP. And they deleted about 100 sent emails in the process, some of which were important things I needed to keep a record of.

Now I know why it's taken me so long to revert back to POP. Because trying to add email accounts to Mail and getting them working smoothly is – unless using IMAP – is, in 2019, as frustrating as it was with Microsoft Outlook circa 2002. Some things don't change!

I deleted the new Mail account, and added it again, but it's still offline. Still “Unable to verify account name or password”. Two screenshots attached. Please can anyone advise me further?

Thank you!

Hi BDAqua,

Thanks for your reply and suggestions. No, I have not changed the password in about two months or so.

I had a look in Utilities > Keychain Access. I couldn't see what I should do after that, and I'm guessing that I don't need to change anything there if I have not changed the password recently? I wasn't sure what you meant by "check the password under that item"? I saw a list of things that have associated passwords, but I couldn't see how to actually see (or check) the passwords.

Any further suggestions?

Thanks.

Thanks.

I tried that. There are two with the email address but prefixed by "IDS:" and suffixed by "-Auth-Token" (one is "login" and one is "local items"), and one which is only the email address ("login" in the keychain column). I'm guessing some of these might be things like the login to iCloud etc.? I really don't know. I'm guessing it is ok to delete the one which is just the email address.

I prefer just downloading emails and not leaving them floating on the server. On the rare occasion when I'm out and need to check emails on my phone, I prefer just seeing the new emails and not long email trails. I've found I have all kinds of glitchy things happening in the Mail app on my MacBook since using IMAP that didn't happen with POP, which appear to be due to constant syncing etc.

Since Apple's Mail app has options for POP, I don't understand why it is so complicated to set up. I suspect the solution will seem simply after spending more hours on it! The benefit of hindsight.

Just spent almost an hour in an online chat with someone at Apple trying to fix the problem. In the end my computer locked up, I had to force it to shut down, and that was the end of that.

Problem still not solved.

Hi BDAqua,

Thanks. Another problem that moving back to POP has solved is that over the past year or so, when trying to find an email in a folder and using the arrow keys, the email preview would often be the same for a series of consecutive emails. So I often couldn't find the email I was looking for! If I opened each email, I could actually see the email. The preview was failing. Since moving from IMAP back to POP, the problem appears to be solved! And previews show faster. Mail is simply running much more smoothly. Good riddance IMAP!

One of the temporary fixes for the problem with the previews was to rebuild mailboxes. It helped slightly, temporarily, but not enough! So, hopefully I won't need to do that anymore. However, I recall rebuilding mailboxes in the past when using POP and did not have any problems with that. Please can you explain why you are advising not to rebuild mailboxes with POP?

Thank you!

I'm the same. I use iCloud for syncing "notes" between my computer and phone, and that's about it.

Still can't get Mail working though. Going to experiment some more.