You can make a difference in the Apple Support Community!

When you sign up with your Apple Account, you can provide valuable feedback to other community members by upvoting helpful replies and User Tips.

💡 Did you know?

⏺ If you can't accept iCloud Terms and Conditions... Learn more >

⏺ If you don't see your iCloud notes in the Notes app... Learn more >

Looks like no one’s replied in a while. To start the conversation again, simply ask a new question.

Jim Little Author

Level 2

205 points

iCloud MobileMe IMAP rejected password

Greetings,

After moving my MobileMe account to iCloud, I am now getting an error message in mail that states:

The MobileMe IMAP server “p99-imap.mail.me.com” rejected the password for user “xxxxxxx”

It keeps popping up a window asking me to enter my me.com password, but won't accept my password.

I googled this error and see a bunch of threads here and other places about problems with IMAP passwords and this same error message back in 2008/2009. But I've never seen this error before, and since it happed just after the transition to iCloud, I suspect it is realted.

Any suggestions?

Thanks

Posted on Oct 12, 2011 8:31 PM

151 replies

love mac

Level 1

14 points

Oct 13, 2011 10:17 AM in response to David Lawless

this worked for me....http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4864

Changing to IMAP with the same log in details as iCloud

Jim Little Author

Level 2

205 points

Oct 13, 2011 10:49 AM in response to Jim Little

Wow. Lot of replies here and in other threads. Obviously some widespread problems. Needless to say... not the smoothest launch for Apple. But I also take part of the blame for being a very-early adopter. Should have just stuck with MobileMe and let other folks uncover the bugs. 😟 Sigh.

One thing that I think would be helpful... it looks to me like not every person in this thread is having the same issue. Some people are talking about problems with iCloud, others with MobileMe. If folks are posting, it would help to let us know:

Did your problems start after moving from MobileMe to iCloud, or are you having problems on a MobileMe account that has not been moved yet?
Are you experiencing problems logging in via:
1. IMAP from Mail application on a Mac (or another IMAP based mail client)
2. iCloud web
3. iOS devices
Were you a prior MobileMe customer, or did you set up a brand new iCloud/me.com account?

Hope they fix this soon...

Joe Gramm

Level 5

6,413 points

Oct 13, 2011 11:28 AM in response to love mac

I followed the KB Article and that helped alot. With one Exception:

IMAP (Incoming Mail Server); For "Authentication I have it set for Apple Token and not Password. Password does not work for me, Apple Token does.

love mac

Level 1

14 points

Oct 13, 2011 11:40 AM in response to Jim Little

I changed to iCloud and everything worked fine yesterday on my MacBook, iPhone (3G) and iPad. then today Thursday around lunchtime, the Ipad and MacBook started with 'the message' that my password was not recognised...

This eve i changed it to IMAP from icloud and woshh all the mail came flooding in!

in short:

3 G phone no issues

Ipad and MacBook no Mail

MobileMe user for several years

Jim Little Author

Level 2

205 points

Oct 13, 2011 12:29 PM in response to Jim Little

Update:

As of 3pm Eastern time, my me.com/iCloud email is showing up in the Mail app on my MacBook. Not sure if it was something I did, or something Apple did. People are posting in other threads that Apple may have fixed some of their server issues.

One change I did make based on a comment in another forum: Under Mail -> Preferences -> Acounts, in my iCloud account under Account Preferences -> User Name, I changed my username from "username" to "username@me.com". Immediately after that, my iCloud email started showing up in Mail.

I still have an old "MobileMe" account showing up in the Mail app that is not working... but I think that is probably an orphan account from before the move. Once I'm confident this is all cleared up and working on iCloud, I will delete the MobileMe account from mail.

I still can't access the iCloud web site.

eibbor7

Level 1

4 points

Oct 13, 2011 12:43 PM in response to Jim Little

I'll just register my problems along with everyone else. iCloud appears fine in Mail. It can receieve anything I send to it. But I can't send from it. I tried the tips in the troubleshooting article, including creating an SMTP server with the requisite ports open and all that. When I did that, I could send out. But, the message would never make it to the recipient.

So, something's buggered here. The System Status page claims that all issues have been resolved. I beg to differ.

Edit: Also, changing the user section to "user@me.com", as opposed to "user" caused the iCloud inbox to grey out and no longer work at all. So, that definitely didn't work for me...

Acemel

Level 1

19 points

Oct 13, 2011 12:50 PM in response to eibbor7

It seems Apple have resolved the issue, everything working here in all devices!

Thinman

Level 1

9 points

Oct 13, 2011 1:00 PM in response to Acemel

Can receive mail but cannot send mail on mail app. However, can go to iCloud and send it from there This has happen only in last days. now that I have gone over to iCloud,

eibbor7

Level 1

4 points

Oct 13, 2011 1:11 PM in response to Acemel

Still not working for me...

Decision made: I'll stick to Gmail for a while longer. Give Apple some time to sort this stuff out. Try this again in a month or so.

On the plus side, all the other iCloud services are working flawlessly.

Dogcow-Moof

Level 8

36,581 points

Oct 13, 2011 1:26 PM in response to rwross1776

Note the KB article is inaccurate; no one I know who's tried the settings in it has been able to get them to work with say Thunderbird.

Meanwhile Mail itself has been rejecting passwords and/or has been horrifically slow (as in ten minutes to retrieve five new emails) most of the day.

Hopefully Apple will get their scaling issues sorted soon.

Jim Little Author

Level 2

205 points

Oct 13, 2011 2:14 PM in response to Jim Little

If I'm an Apple iCloud engineer... here is what I'm thinking right about now:

"Great, we had major problems with iCloud release. Started at 8am tomorrow, 1 million new iPhone 4S's are going to be delivered to their owners. Some significant portion of those people are going to sign up for new iCloud accounts. Oh S*$&%&^@."

I'm guessing there will be a lot of sleepless engineers tonight.

Oct 13, 2011 2:23 PM in response to Acemel

Seems to be working here now too.

JimminyC

Level 1

6 points

Oct 13, 2011 3:00 PM in response to Jim Little

I'll just add to the chorus. Yesterday, imediately after converting from MobileMe to iCloud, all was working perfectly. Today, I'm having the same problem as so many others with the rejected password for iCloud mail on my iMac and on my Macbook Air. Unable to receive any iCloud messages on either of these two computers, although I was able to send a message from iCloud on the iMac earlier this afternoon. Looking at the mail screen, there is a little circle with a squiggle (~) in it next to iCloud in my list of mail accounts.

Oddly, the iCloud mail account is working just fine in all of my iOS equipment (iPhone, iPad, iPod). I can send and receive from them with no problems.

Hopefully, Apple will sort this out over the weekend....so I'll wait a few days before I start complaining.

Joe Gramm

Level 5

6,413 points

Oct 13, 2011 3:34 PM in response to Dogcow-Moof

William,

The settings from the KB article did partly help me. My SMTP settings after the upgrade became "smtp.me.com"

The KB said they should be "smtp.mail.me.com", which seemed to help greatly. Just an example.

I'm curious to find out how Apple sorts this all out if it is partly due to incorrect setting during the upgrade vs an overload on the Servers. I think it's a combination of the two.

A very ambitious upgrade on Apple's part.

dwb_dwb

Level 1

0 points

Oct 13, 2011 7:03 PM in response to iPlayGames

You'd think hey!

iCloud MobileMe IMAP rejected password