Setting up SMTP to Google Mail from Apple Mail

I've been struggling with why Gmail sending from Mail has been an issue for multiple years.

My workaround has been to start a reply in Apple Mail, save it as a draft then open a browser to re-open the draft in Google Mail and send from there. This has worked until today when the draft didn't fully saved and it appeared that I lost the final edits.

I've looked around and found several references but as of March 2025 there are some stumbling blocks especially for those who might not know what the acronyms SMTP, TLS and SSL might mean.

SMTP - is the Sending protocol for your outgoing messages. There are different settings for incoming vs outgoing mail.

This previous discussion points to the Google reference but it might need some explanation for most consumers.

how to set up SMTP for gmail.com to send … - Apple Community

Previously you just setup your Google Username, Google Password and smtp URL in the Apple Mail Outgoing Mail Account. You could enable the Automatically Configure Connection Settings.

If you enabled Two Factor Authentication for your Google Account, the way that SMTP could be configured changed. Using your normal Google password would no longer be accepted and you would receive various error messages from Apple Mail.

Google no longer supports sending your password when two factor is enabled and instead requires you to generate an app password, which is a different 16 character passcode that is used when authenticating SMTP connections. This replaces your Google password in the Password field for your Outgoing Mail Settings.

Create and manage your app passwords

Give the App Password a title so you know what it is for. I used "Apple Mail" and click Create.

It will show a modal with a device specific code. Copy that and paste into the password field for your Outgoing Email Connection for smtp.gmail.com, You can leave the automatic checkbox ticked.

Test sending an email from your Gmail account from within Apple Mail. If the email is sent you should see a copy appear in the Gmail > Sent folder. It can take 10s of seconds.

Hope this helps. It took way too long to find the solution in one place. Doing a search for App Passwords in the Google My Account was currently yielding nothing.