Mac Mail Server Autodiscovery

Question

Mac Mail Server Autodiscovery

Hi all!

For our customer (an Email Service Provider) we are trying to find out if (and to what extent) Mac Mail supports Server Autodiscovery (just the way Outlook 2007 and 2010 (for Windows) do it, see http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb124251.aspx).

The goal is that the User only has to enter his/her email address, and the SMTP/POP3 host/port are automagically configured in Mac Mail.

We know that Mac Mail does read our customer's autodiscover.xml (see Microsoft's definition of the autodiscovery-process in the link above) and supports a certain subset of the aforementioned "autodiscovery protocol" in order to support Exchange servers --- but is this also possible for SMTP and POP3 servers?
In our tests we could not get Mac Mail to autoconfigure itself using an autodiscover.xml file which works perfectly well for Outlook 2007 (and our SMTP and POP3 servers).

We also found out, that Mac Mail seems to use a proprietary autodiscovery service implemented as a web service at https://mac-services.apple.com --- this one seems to be the reason why e.g. "mymail@hotmail.com" will configure Mac Mail to use the pop3.live.com server.
Does anyone know of a way for a small Email Service Provider to become one of those supported providers?

Thanks for any information,
heli

Mac OS X (10.6)

Posted on Jan 14, 2011 1:21 AM

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Answer 1

Oct 1, 2015 12:14 PM in response to Helmut Rubasch

It's now almost 2016 and guess what Apple is doing, yes, they're pussyfooting their braindead software that doesn't follow the MS TechNet article that clearly specifies what should be returned and how it should be interpreted.

We're a hosting provider that wants to automatically configure our clients mail settings. Outlook? Yes, it works. Thunderbird? Yes. Mac Mail? No, we get a big black Dick drawn right on coniguration screen that asks user to specify mail settings manually.

And the error MacMail outputting when it has RETRIEVED the autodiscover.xml content, you won't believe:

2015-10-01 01:51:42.206 Mail[16572:9c57] [LogEWSAutodiscoveryActivity] failed with error=(null)

No you just have to read it: failed with error=(null).

NULL. in 2016.

I'd fire entire MacMail team for this.

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Answer 2

Gobs

Level 1

105 points

Jan 14, 2011 3:34 AM in response to Helmut Rubasch

Well, i'm not sure if it's possible because there was some problems with webdav (on Mail.app) in the past...
but here is something maybe it help.

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/forums/en-US/exchangesvrclients/thread/ebce3 5a3-d490-4f0e-afb2-63d94f35dc2f/

and

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/exchange2010/thread/b112b61e-40 1f-4ad9-b459-a25673ff5407/

Message was edited by: Gobs

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Answer 3

Jan 18, 2011 1:16 AM in response to Gobs

Thanks for your feedback!

The problem I am referring to happens much "earlier" than the one you describe.

We are trying to use server-autodiscovery in Mac Mail with our own SMTP/POP3-Mailservers. We do not have an Exchange server, but we want to use this autodiscovery protocol (which was introduced by Microsoft I think in Exchange and Outlook 2003) with Mac Mail and our own SMTP (Postfix) and POP3 servers.

We would like the following scenario to work:
* the user creates a new email account in Mac Mail
* the user enters the email address and password
* Mac Mail loads the "autodiscover.xml" from our website (autodiscovery as implemented by Outlook >=2003 and Exchange) --- this file contains the SMTP and POP3 server settings (host and port, security options, ...)
* Mac Mail uses this information to create the email account
=> the user does NOT have to enter SMTP/POP3 host, port, security options, ... .

This works nice with Outlook, but Mac Mail (which DOES load the autodiscover.xml file according to Wireshark!) fails to recognize or use the correct SMTP/POP3 configuration from the autodiscover.xml file...

Anyone ever tried autodiscovery with Mac Mail and a non-Exchange email server?

Any help is still appreciated!
heli

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Answer 4

Feb 24, 2011 9:25 AM in response to Helmut Rubasch

i've set up http://autodiscover.vcn.com/autodiscover/autodiscover.xml

it's set to use php to parse the email address and log the output, when I enter in my email address in mail and continue, it hits the address above, posts an email address.

[Mon, 21 Feb 2011 15:55:20 -0700] <Autodiscover xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/exchange/autodiscover/outlook/requestschema /2006"><Request><EMailAddress>skennedy@vcn.com</EMailAddress><AcceptableResponse Schema> http://schemas.microsoft.com/exchange/autodiscover/outlook/responseschema/2006a</AcceptableResponseSchema></Request></Autodiscover>
[Mon, 21 Feb 2011 15:57:06 -0700]
[Mon, 21 Feb 2011 15:59:47 -0700] - RECEIVED - <Autodiscover xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/exchange/autodiscover/outlook/requestschema /2006"><Request><EMailAddress>test@vcn.com</EMailAddress><AcceptableResponseSche ma> http://schemas.microsoft.com/exchange/autodiscover/outlook/responseschema/2006a</AcceptableResponseSchema></Request></Autodiscover>
[Mon, 21 Feb 2011 15:59:47 -0700] - RESPONSE - <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<Autodiscover xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/exchange/autodiscover/responseschema/2006">
<Response xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/exchange/autodiscover/outlook/responseschem a/2006a">
<Account>
<AccountType>email</AccountType>
<Action>settings</Action>
<Protocol>
<Type>POP3</Type>
<Server>mail.vcn.com</Server>
<Port>110</Port>
<LoginName>test@vcn.com</LoginName>
<DomainRequired>on</DomainRequired>
<SPA>off</SPA>
<SSL>off</SSL>
<AuthRequired>on</AuthRequired>
</Protocol>
<Protocol>
<Type>IMAP</Type>
<Server>mail.vcn.com</Server>
<Port>143</Port>
<LoginName>test@vcn.com</LoginName>
<DomainRequired>on</DomainRequired>
<SPA>off</SPA>
<SSL>off</SSL>
<AuthRequired>on</AuthRequired>
</Protocol>
<Protocol>
<Type>SMTP</Type>
<Server>smtp.vcn.com</Server>
<Port>465</Port>
<LoginName>test@vcn.com</LoginName>
<DomainRequired>on</DomainRequired>
<SPA>off</SPA>
<SSL>on</SSL>
<AuthRequired>on</AuthRequired>
<UsePOPAuth>on</UsePOPAuth>
<SMTPLast>on</SMTPLast>
</Protocol>
</Account>
</Response>
</Autodiscover>

but mail forces me to put in settings manually, even though it should have just been handed the settings on a silver platter.

does this not work with non-exchange servers?

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Answer 5

mikew77

Level 1

0 points

Feb 25, 2011 4:16 AM in response to jamenlang

I'm also in this predicament - I can get outlook to receive the settings but not mac mail. I think that the mac is receiving and understanding the xml response but ignoring the pop3 imap and smtp settings.

However, if you add in the following to the xml response:

<Protocol>
<Type>EXPR</Type>
<Server>mydomain.com</Server>
<LoginName>username</LoginName>
<ASUrl> https://autodiscover.mydomain.com/ews/exchange.asmx</ASUrl>
</Protocol>

Then you can see that the mac readily follows this and attempts to setup an exchange account and you should detect a 404 in your log for ews/exchange.asmx

Obviously this is not a solution but I think it demonstrates that the xml is being understood just ignored, so perhaps that's what Apple mean when they say exchange compatibility right "out-of-the-box"

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Answer 6

Jun 21, 2014 7:29 AM in response to jamenlang

Hi,

This post is rather old but it appears that auto discovery is still not working.

Mail (on iOS and OS X) is actually fetching autodiscover.xml but seems to ignore its contents : user needs to setup IMAP and SMTP settings manually.

Did anyone had some success since 2011 ?

Does some engineer at Apple plans to spent 2h fixing this "bug" ?

Thanks for your feedback,

Benoit

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Answer 7

fyreous

Level 1

40 points

Aug 12, 2014 4:55 AM in response to Helmut Rubasch

Hi all,

Joining the discussion thread here as I'd also like to figure out a way to accomplish the goal stated by the OP. My situation is that I host my own personal email and domain (IMAP / SMTP), and would like to make an auto-discover script or xml file that Apple Mail will actually obey. I've been able to get it accomplished for other email clients, such as Thunderbird, but as has been pointed out above - even though Apple Mail does fetch and read the xml file - it seems to ignore the settings in it and instead still prompts a manual configuration during account setup.

Has anyone been able to find a solution to this yet? I'm continuing to tinker around with this myself, and will post an update if I make any progress.

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Answer 8

Jun 16, 2015 2:19 AM in response to fyreous

This might be helpful if someone knows how to pull the appropriate records.

cox.net uses auto discover for their IMAP system and it works very well. It sets up Apple Mail and iOS Mail just fine.

Also, EarthLink has FINALLY started supporting IMAP. They've set up auto discover and, as far as I can tell, it works PERFECTLY. Not only does it set up the account by just entering the email address and password (configuring MD5 Challenge Response, port numbers and encryption settings), but it ALSO correctly maps the Drafts, Sent, and Trash folders. WOW!

Now... I don't know how to do it (yet), but if someone can analyze how those companies made their systems work, maybe by pulling the appropriate DNS and/or xml records or whatnot, that might get us further along in this quest.

I'll be watching this space!

Alex Bottinelli

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Answer 9

Eric Root

Level 10

685,443 points

Jun 21, 2014 8:46 AM in response to Helmut Rubasch

https://ssl.apple.com/support/mail-settings-lookup/

Account Setup

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Answer 10

Feb 25, 2011 6:52 AM in response to mikew77

Outlook kind of follows the settings. I specified %EMAILADDRESS% for the login and outlook just uses the username, but it does seem to work.

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Answer 11

Jun 22, 2014 12:48 AM in response to Eric Root

Hi Eric,

That's not really the question. We're not looking to configure our mail settings, we want automatic configuration using auto discovery feature.

The problem is :

When my users sets up their mail account user@mydomain.com Mail automatically looks for https://autodiscover.mydomain.com/autodiscover/autodiscover.xml

The contents of this file is not used for configuration (as it's supposed to be) and users still needs to setup its account manually.

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Answer 12

Jahadeem

Level 1

54 points

Nov 2, 2016 6:49 PM in response to Helmut Rubasch

Waiting to find out if Apple ever does anything to allow the Mail Application on both Mac OS and IOS to find settings with autodiscover correctly.

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