Can't send Gmail from Apple Mail. Won't let me set the passwords. Received Gmail just fine in Apple Mail.

If Mail on your Mac keeps asking for your password

• Your email provider needs you to update or reset your password for security reasons. For example, if you're using Google’s two-step verification, your Gmail account in Mail requires the appropriate app-specific password.
• Your email provider deactivated or suspended your account. Contact your email provider for help.

veehbJ wrote:

P. Phillips, Thanks for your reply!! I see you have a lot of experience with Apple software.

I assume my email provider is Apple, as I'm using Apple Mail on my iMac and have been using Gmail with it and other apple computers for over a decade. I'm not sure what the app-specific password is. I've used the same passwords for these two Gmail accounts for a long time (updating them as necessary). And only recently have I had trouble accessing Gmail in the Apple environment. It seems to be a problem once in a while when I wake the iMac from a long sleep. I had problems getting Apple Mail to recognize the two Gmail accounts yesterday when the iMac had been asleep overnight. I posted a question regarding that experience yesterday on this forum.

When I go into Gmail with the Chrome browser, I can receive and send mail with no problem. My Apple mail will let me receive email on both accounts, but will not send on either. When I try to send email, I see a white box that says: "Can't connect to the account "Gmail". "Enter the password for user "Vee Butterfield". When I enter the passwords that worked in the past and that still work on Gmail on the Chrome browser, I get a message that says, "Unable to verify account name or password".

Would it work for me to delete these GMail accounts in Apple Mail and then reinstall them? Hate to do that as that takes a long time and I have a lot of older mail files stored in folders in Apple Mail that I often have to reference. I'd lose all that structure that I've built over the years.

I used to be able to go into the Apple Mail setup files and could see and change passwords. No longer able to do that. It looks like the passwords need to be managed in Google. I hestitate to change them there as I can still use Gmail on Google. Has Apple changed the way Apple Mail handles 3rd party mail programs?

Any other suggestions? Or do I need to get Apple support to look at it?

The Mail Client ( Application ) is Apple Mail and the service Provider for this mail is Google G-Mail.

To be honest, personally do not use G-Mail - personal preference and no judgements here.

There seems to be frequent issues between Apple Mail Client and Google G-Mail.

One might begin by verifying with Google Mail Account if

1 - Application Specific Passwords are required. Example - on my Windows 10 Laptop and Microsoft Mail Client - to have access to my iCloud Mail from Windows 10 computer, I must first setup on my Apple ID Account a specific Password generated by Apple and use hat specific Password on the Windows 10 Mail Client to have access to iCloud mail. Extend this example to Apple Mail Client to Accessing Google G-Mail only G-Mail will control the password to play well on Apple.

2 - If G-Mail is using Googles 2FA which I image is much like Apple 2FA, where designated Trusted Devices must be used to Receive a Code sent to the Trusted Device before the account will function.

3 - Remove the Google Mail Account and add it back as last resort.

Very Welcome and thank you too.

Do come back to ASC Forums if or when additional arise.

We are here it assist.

I had difficulty getting my gmail accounts to work on a new M1 chip MacBook Pro after migration. To enter the password, it indicated that would need to be done via browser, then opened a small window that remained blank. Two steps were needed to fix the problem:

1. Logged into my Google account and enabled "allow less secure third party access" (suggest searching for this -- not sure how to navigate to it)
2. On my MacBook Pro, set my default browser to Chrome (was Safari). Then when it opened a browser window for password entry, everything worked fine. Once I entered the passwords for my gmail accounts, I reset my default browser back to Safari.

Hope this is helpful to others -- it took me quite a while to figure this out and I didn't find the above steps online anywhere (hence this post)