How to force a Mail account to use IMAP instead of POP?

goetzilla wrote:

The simple solution was to enter a invalid email address. This keeps the Mail app from configuring the mail account automatically and you are able to select IMAP from the following screen.

What following screen? I don't get any "following screen". Using this method I do get an error message, but all it says is that the password was rejected, and asks me to re-enter it. At no point does it give me the opportunity to select IMAP.

Brilliant suggestion, totally correct. Many thanks.

The other thing you can do is,

If your mail server (such as gmail) can be configured to both imap and pop, then you can go into the settings of that email account and disable POP settings. That way when Mac Mail searches for configuration, it will automatically configure IMAP and you won't have to do it manually... Cheers,

Superb solution.

My virgin.net provider went to a gmail type setup a couple of years ago. It wants everyone to use webmail, which doesn't suit me.

I've put up with POP access until I found this thread; now all is sorted: Thank you.

The "following screen" is what pops up when you click "Continue" again (even with no password: it shows the IMAP option).

If you did use a false e-mail, correct all of them in the next screens and create the account.

You may find the erroneous e-mail account still showing if you edit that account's settings - correct it there, and it should burst into life.

If your having problems getting your Apple Mail or Mac Mail to sync across your devices, I thought this might be helpful. It could be because you have your email accounts set up with POP rather than IMAP configuration. Try this solution.

I had set up my gmail account a long time ago (5 years) before I know the differnce between POP and IMAP. IMAP allows you to sync across devices... POP is OLD SCHOOL technology of the 90's. Now that I know better, and have more than one device I want to sync, so I want to change the settings in mac mail to convert the gmail emails from a POP account type to an IMAP accont type, but I cannot afford to loose all of my previous emails that I'd saved (100's of them), which is what will happend if you delete this account to start anew.

Odly, even after I set up the email as IMAP in gmail, it still did not update the account type in Apple Mail. Apparently this has to be done from scratch.

!.WARNING, BEFORE PROCEDING THROUGHT THE FOLLOWING, BACK UP YOUR MAC.!

What worked for me was actually rather simple, but to be safe BACK UP.

Note: It did dissassociate all of my "Signatures" but did not erase them from my email acconts (I have 14 email accounts with google apps). Your exprience could be different, so please ba safe and back up.

1) First I dissabled the existing email account in my Apple Mail program.

2) Then recreated the account from scratch as an IMAP.*

* Be sure to change the account to an IMAP in gmail first (Click the Gear on the right > Settings > Forwarding & POP IMAP > Disable POP then Enable IMAP

***Deactivating took the account out of view (hidden) but retained all of the saved emails from the past. At the same time it allowed me to recreate the account in Apple Mail from scratch and it auto pulled up the IMAP configuration, with the same gmail account I was using before set up as POP. ***

Now I'm left with the best of both worlds and all syncs perfectly.

Just don't forget and accidentally delete the inactive account, or you will lose ALL of the emails you saved during the time when the old POP email account was active.

Good Luck!

Thank you!! This worked for me!