How to help Mail work?

CrazyHappy wrote:

Yeah, I used CleanMyMac X, did a restart. None of it helped.

That was a mistake. CMM is considered akin to malware by most of the experienced contributors to these forums. If you have it before the problem started it could be part of the problem.

First, there is no reason to ever install or run any 3rd party "cleaning", "optimizing", "speed-up", anti-virus, VPN or security apps on your Mac.  This documents describe what you need to know and do in order to protect your Mac: Effective defenses against malware and other threats - Apple Community and Recognize and avoid phishing messages, phony support calls, and other scams - Apple Support.  

There are no known viruses, i.e. self propagating, for Macs.  There are, however, adware and malware which require the user to install although unwittingly most of the time thru sneaky links, etc.   

Anti Virus developers try to group all types as viruses into their ad campaigns of fear.  They do a poor job of the detecting and isolating the adware and malware.  Since there are no viruses these apps use up a lot of system resources searching for what is non-existent and adversely affect system and app performance.

There is one app, Malwarebytes, which was developed by a long time contributor to these forums and a highly respected member of the computer security community, that is designed solely to seek out adware and known malware and remove it.  The free version is more than adequate for most users.  

Unless you're using a true VPN tunnel, such as between you and your employer's, school's or bank's servers, they provide false security from a privacy standpoint.  Read these two articles: Public VPN's are anything but private and Security Risks: The Dangers of Using Free VPNs (eccu.edu)

Uninstall CMM according to the developer's instructions. You can check to see if you've removed all of the supporting files by downloading and running the shareware app Find Any File to search for any files with the application's or the developer's name in the file name.  For CMM software you'd do the following search(es): 

1 - Name contains cleanmymac

2 - Name contains macpaw

Any files that are found can be dragged from the search results window to the Desktop or Trash bin in the Dock for deletion.

FAF can search areas that Spotlight can't like invisible folders, system folders and packages.  

If you get warnings that the file can't be deleted because it is in use or used by another app boot into Safe Mode according to How to use safe mode on your Mac and delete from there.

Note:  if you have a wireless keyboard with rechargeable batteries connect it with its charging cable before booting into Safe Mode.  This makes it act as a wired keyboard as will assure a successful boot into Safe Mode.

And did you try the Safe Boot?

What does the Connection Doctor say?

Mail -> Window -> Connection Doctor

It will test each configured account and let you know of any configuration or connection issues.

Is that a Gmail account that you created or was it provided by some organization or service?When you added it to mail, it should’ve bumped you out to the web to authenticate the account with Google. Did that happen?

Can you provide a screenshot?

Have you installed and run any "cleaning", "optimizing", "speed-up", anti-virus or VPN apps on your Mac?

Boot into Safe Mode according to How to use safe mode on your Mac and try to add the printer from there.

Note:  if you have a wireless keyboard with rechargeable batteries connect it with its charging cable before booting into Safe Mode.  This makes it act as a wired keyboard as will assure a successful boot into Safe Mode.

This is what your settings Gmail should look like.