Mail in OSX Lion : pop not OK

Finally a solution that works! Thanks a lot Alfacruxis! 😀

After months of frustration I tried what you suggested and my POP account now works again with Lion as well as it did in Snow Leopard.

I deleted my non-working POP account, then added it again selecting IMAP under the "type of account" thing. After that I entered my POP server settings as usual and after creating the account Mail connected to the server without problems.

thanks a lot , I did the exactaly the same and it worksssss, I was blocked since i upgrad to lion

thanks a lot to Alfacruxis , my ISP providers can't find the solution

Unfortunately, Alfacruxis solution doesn't work in the opposite way (i.e. if you have problems only with IMAP).

I've tried configuring my mail as POP and it works without issues (as it did from the very first Lion day). Howveer, as soon as i change manually the server configuration to IMAP it refuses to login. Anyway, this couldn't work in any case as, once an account is configured as POP, Mail does not create the local cached copy of the server folder structure.

The worst aspect is that we are now close to two months from Lion release, and, except for some investigations at the very beginning, now Apple is silent and does not seem to be very interested in fixing this issue. This is a shame as Mail 5 should be one of the main points in Lion, while is now just a useless piece of code for all those experiencing this problem. This is depressing...

Hi, seems you found a 'Bandaid' to get this fixed.

Before I try it, what happens to all my mailboxes if I delete the POP account ?

It says that it will delete all mailboxes ?

Thanks for some shared experiences ... and does anybody at apple read this stuff ?

Hi Stearmanfrosty,

As long as I understand, when using POP accounts, all the mailboxes are created locally in your computer, so if you delete an account, all the mailboxes should remain intact in your Mac.

To de shure of that, enter your email server vía web (webmail as it it called). Your ISP most certainly provides this web access. Once loged-in, you should NOT find your mailboxes in the webmail, meanning they are in your mail program on computer, not in the "server account" itself.

Further, ask your ISP about this and, of course, if you have any sort of backup, you are protected against any loss and you can recover them from the copy.

Regards.

Hi Alfacruxis ,

when you click the "- " sign (delete) on the Pop account there's a window that says all mailboxes and messages will be permanently deleted. Yes, I do a regular backup in timemachine, and would just before I delete the POP account, but when I bring it back, it will also bring back all the old POP settings ?

Any smart ideas ?

Amazed we have to talk about this , should be APPLE, who took my $30 !!

Thanks.

Hehe, well, sometimes the best and quickest solutions come from the farums rather tha Apple. In my experience the best way to get a quick and complete support from Apple, is through the Genius Bar, not online. Those guys ate the Genius Bar are really geniuses.

When you delete any mail account on Mail, the mailboxes that will be deleted are the ones standard to the account, that is, the Inbox, Outbox, Sent and Trash mailboxes. If you have any content on them, it will be lost.

Those mailboxes are under "MAILBOXES" on the tree view, at the left of the Mail window.

The mailboxes created under "ON MY MAC" won't be deleted. You can either create a mailbox here and copy or move all messages you want to keep.

When restoring from the backup, will only restore the mailbox and not the account or its settings. Those recovered mailboxes will appear as "Time Machine" recovered mailboxes so they don't interfere with the current active accounts.

If you ask me, I will go with the firts choice: create a local mailbox and copy/move all the msgs there. Is faster and more organized than Time Machine.

Another thing you can do is first create the new IMAP/POP account before deleting the original. There is no problem in having two accounts with the same settings.

Once you are certain this account is working properly, move all the msgs to the new mailboxes and then delete the original account.

Regards.

Hi Alfacruxis ,

Im not that experienced so could you or anbody else please give me some more explaination how to make the necessary changes? Because I'm really tired of this problem which still is not solved or acknowledged by Apple. I also think we should get some more information about what Apple is doing regarding this problem.

Thanks!

Hi Pauleman,

Simple re-create the POP account:

Got to Mail Preferences, Accounts and click the + button (bottom left) to add an account.

Put your name, email address and password and click Continue. The program checks the server.

Now, in the Incoming Server page, select IMAP as type of account. This is very important: no matter that the account is a POP one, you should choose IMAP.

Then fill-in all the other fields: Description, Incoming Server, ID and password.

This is very important too: The incoming Server must be the POP server. It should be the same you already have in the POP account that is not working, no matter you have chosen IMAP in the account type.

Press Continue.

Then comes the Outgoing Server. Configure it like the one you already have in the account that is not working.

Then press Continue and finally create the account.

If you have any doubt as what to enter in the Incoming and Outgoing Servers fields, contact your ISP and they will tell you the names of the servers.

Once you created the new account and verified it works properly, copy or move all the messages you have in the one that is not working, to the mailboxes on the new one. Then delete the old account.

Regards.

Alfacruxis, you are a genius! I like many others have had major problems with POP mail since upgrading to Lion. I have tried many work arounds but resorted to having gmail pick up my pop account. I tried your solution and it worked. Now I'm back using Mail. Thanks so much for your advice.

Unfortunately, Comcast does not use IMAP and configuring the POP3 accounts as decsribed does not seem to connect.

So, I am stuck configuring it as a POP3 account and dealing with the password issue until there is a fix, unless someone else has another workaround.

Works, great, except I don't like Imap, as it does not give you the choice of deleting messages once downloaded from the server. Like this if I keep em'(or too many) in my inbox for too long, my mailbox my gets clogged.

POP does that really well.

Another problem that seems associated is it asks me for the password, on and off, somewtimes it'll remember if you don't click 'remember password' and sometimes it will.

Now, interestingly, it happens with both POP and IMAP, any ideas ?

Mike

Dear all, news from Brazil.

At home I have a MacBook Air new Generation (2011) with Lion and facing no problems with POP and IMAP Gmail Account.

With my MacBook Air (2010) with Lion Upgrade, my Mail 5.0 just stopped to receive emails from POP Gmail Account (IMAP is OK).

Following Alfacruxis instructions at the first moment Mail 5.0 starts to download messages from POP Gmail Acount.

But, at the first week of use, Mail 5.0 works fine too.

Let's see for how long this fix will FIX. Next week I will come back and post the results.

In any case: Alfacruxis, thanks a lot.

Some of the hints like holding down the Command key to see "Continue" instead of "Create" are only visible / working when you are setting up Mac Mail for the first time.

Apple has disappointed me big time. Not only have they not updated Mac Mail properly for ages, now they have screwed this one up and iCal and the Address Book as well ....

An other workaround is to create a different POP account if you have the option (use Yahoo.co.uk for example or your POP account you get sometimes with your ISP) and then change all settings to Gmail POP and SMT servers therafter.

I am hoping truly that the departure of Steve Jobs is not the sign for more sloppy work in the future. But then again, he was watching over previous misghaps. He is not God after all.

the suggestion of a new account worked for me. didn't realize that it was only the standard mailboxes that were deleted. once you told me that i went ahead and tried and so far so good. i had spent hours on this during the last few days having to resort to using only me.com to send mail. odd thing is that this problem did not surface right away for me. i had been using lion mail for some time. this just started last week. who knows what changed, but i am very, very glad that you posted this.