Change iCloud SMTP Server Settings

I kept working with this and ultimately found a process that gets all of this to work. It is as follows:

• On your iPad or iPhone, setup your iCloud account per instructions on the device. If you have already established an iCloud account on your Mac, use the same credentials to create your account on the iPad or iPhone.
• Setup e-mail forwarding with the provider of your POP e-mail address; all incoming e-mail should be forwarded to the xxxx@me.com address that was established when you initially set up iCloud
• On your iPad or iPhone, setup an account for the provider of your POP e-mail address account per instructions on the device
• Once these accounts are established, go back to Settings>Mail, Contacts, Calendars and select “Add Account”
• Choose other
• Stay in IMAP setup, and under "IMAP Account Information":
  • Insert your name
  • Insert xxxx@me.com (the @me address that you established when you setup iCloud on your Mac or on iPad or iPhone.)
• Under "Incoming Mail Server":
  • Insert host name (for example, pXX-imap.mail.me.com); you will find this name for your iCloud account on your Mac with Lion installed
  • Insert xxxx@me.com
  • Insert the password for the @me account
• Under "Outgoing Mail Server"

  Insert smtp.POPemailprovider.com in the SMTP box (for example smtp.comcast.net)

• Once all information is accepted, go back into the "Outgoing Mail Server" Box and leave the smtp address you just established as the primary server, but also, under "Other SMTP Servers" turn on that same smtp address as an additional server.
• Again, once the account verifies, go back to the "IMAP Account Information" box and change the e-mail address from the xxxx@me.com address to the preferred POP email address. (For example xxxx@comcast.net)
• Change Description to whatever you’d like except iCloud and hit "Done"
• You will have the option to have both “Mail” and “notes” turned on. Be certain to leave “Mail” on.
• Go back into the primary iCloud account and turn off "Mail"
• Delete the POP e-mail account

Once all these steps are completed, all e-mail to your preferred POP address will forward into your iCloud inbox on your iPhone or iPad. In addition, all sent mail will come from your preferred POP address and will automatically sync through iCloud on all your devices or computers.

Mike,

The setup process is the same for all of your IOS 5 devices (i.e. iPad, IPhone, iPod) but is somewhat different for the Mac. As you will see, some steps you will have already completed given the fact that you have already setup an IOS 5 device. The instructions for any Mac (iMac, Macbook, etc) are as follows:

Enabling POP mail in iCloud using the Apple Mail application

The following steps will enable you to sync POP e-mail with iCloud. This assumes that you want to use your current POP e-mail address as your primary e-mail address rather than switching to an @ me address. This also assumes you have already established an iCloud account, and in turn, have created an @me e-mail address which enables iCloud for mail. Here's a summary.

• First, be sure to backup both your contacts and calendars that may already be in iCloud.
• Log into “My Apple ID” on the Apple support page and add and verify your POP e-mail address as an alternate ID. (For example xxxxxx@comcast.net)
• Log into your POP e-mail provider’s e-mail preferences screen and add forwarding rules to your POP account. The most important rule to add is one that will forward any e-mail received by that POP e-mail address to your @me e-mail address (be sure to include rules for messages sent directly to you and those on which you are cc’d). Over time, you may need to add a few others to ensure that all e-mail that otherwise would be received at the POP address is forwarded to your @me address.
• Go into System Preferences on your desktop, and if you have already established an iCloud account, sign out of it. You will be asked if you want to retain or delete contacts and calendar entries. As those entries will remain in iCloud even after you sign out on your Mac, delete them when asked this question. (Obviously, the backups you will have already created are just in case something gets lost.)
• Open the Apple Mail application and go into Preferences. Click on the accounts tab, delete any accounts that are currently listed and save the changes when you exit Mail Preferences.
• Then, go back to System Preferences, click on the iCloud icon, and re-setup your iCloud account using the primary Apple ID for that account. As you proceed through the setup procedure, be sure to check Mail & Notes as items you want synced via iCloud.
• Reopen Mail, return to Mail Preferences, and click the accounts tab. You should already see iCloud as the first and only account. In that account, in the box for e-mail addresses, you will already see your @me account listed. After a comma, add your preferred POP e-mail address after the @me e-mail address.
• Still in Mail Preferences, click the plus sign to add an additional account. Go through the process of adding your POP account.
• Once you have completed that step, go back into the iCloud account, and in the tab labeled “outgoing mail server”, choose the POP account server and then check the “Use only this server” box. When exiting the accounts tab, save the changes
• While still in Mail Preferences, go the “Composing” tab, and under “Send New Messages From” select your POP account (the first one). Close and save all changes to Mail Preferences.

In the Mail application, you can now create iCloud folders and/or On My Mac folders, as you like. Once all these steps are taken, e-mail sent to your POP e-mail address will enter your Inbox as iCloud mail, and thus will be visible on all computers set up this way. In addition, mail you send from any computer so configured, or responses to mail you receive will also become iCloud mail and will thus be visible on all your devices, even though your sent mail will come from your POP e-mail address. Any mail you move into an iCloud folder will now appear on all your devices (mail in an On My Mac folder will only be available on that computer), and finally, when you delete any iCloud message, it will be deleted on all your devices.

bump. someone from apple please respond.

Bump again - support please respond asap - icloud useless to me now and i cant roll back to mobile me or snow lep. easily.

The original post is a month old - how long does it take to resolve or reply?

Synching devices but using my 'email@owndomain.com' account was the only reason for having mobile me and the only reason bought lion and move to icloud.

I found this fix .... It worked for me - thanks to Tom359 on MacRumours... I did tweak his instructions for clarity - but credit to Tom

-Go into Settings, Mail, Add Account

-Create a new account...don't pick any of the pre-named ones. Pick "other"

-click "add mail account"

name: yourname

Address; you@anotheremail.com (ie not me.com - as this will be the sender id on outgoing mail)

incoming server info:

host: pXX-imap.mail.me.com (see your icloud account)

user: yourname@me.com

passwd: for cloud

On the bottom of the screen you will see an area for an outgoing SMTP server.

outgoing

smtp: your.smtp.other.com (whatever that is for your other account)

username: for the outbound account (usually your email - but not always)

password: for the outbound account

Once it validates, go back and disable mail on your original iCloud account.

Works perfectly for me. I get everything pushed to me by iCloud, but my replies look like they came from me@mydomain.com, just like I had it set up with MobileMe.

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iphone working - will try similar fix in morning to make iMail play ball.

I have tried this and may be missing something. When the system tries to verify the new account, I get a message that indicates that the pxx-imap.mail.me.server is not responding. If I continue in spite of that message, and then disable iCloud mail, I have no iCloud mail and cannot send mail through the new account. What am I missing?

Hi Joscary9 - before looking further have you entered your icloud server name - the 'xx' refers to digits which vary? eg p99-imap.me.server Look at your server preferences on an icloud email account that has set up automatically on default settings.

I followed your step by step guide above and it worked great. Thanks for posting that and saving me hours of trial and error.

One question, is this same set up then repeated on ALL devices (iMac, MacBook Pro, iPad, iPhone, iPod)?

I have all of the above that I use and want to keep them all in sync. I would appreciate your experience here. Thanks, Mike

Great post! Prior to this post I was able to send with alternative server on iphone - until I synced and the iphone could not send. I battled it for days as the iphone would not respond and send, then finally it started working again. Now I need to be able to sync and not disrupt the flow and also sync new ipad to work with mac and phone. If I follow your post above it seems I will be able to set up the mac correctly after I delete the current imap account and start fresh. Vital information here - what will happen to all the emails that are currently in my icloud mail folders and organizing my entire business life and shared between the three devices. I CAN NOT lose them and have great fear regarding deleting the icloud mail account. Your suggestion?

thanks

As long as you have iCloud set up on multiple devices, you shouldn't lose your data even if you remove iCloud from a single device. Having said that, in order to avoid any risk, take the following steps. (This all assumes that you have Lion installed on your Mac, and you use Mail as your e-mail application.) In Finder, click "Go" while holding down the "alt option" key, and you will see "Library" in the menu. Click on it, and look for the folder labeled "Mail". This is the folder where all your current Mail folders (including iCloud folders) are stored. Click on that folder - you will then see a sub-folder labeled "V2". Copy this folder to your desktop. Then, open Mail, select "File" and then "Import Mailboxes". Select "Apple Mail" from the menu, click continue, and select the V2 folder you just copied to your desktop. When the import process finishes, you will see a message that your imported folders are in a folder named "Import". That folder should appear as an "On My Mac" folder. Check to see that the contents of that folder include all the folders you want to retain -- you may have to work through some sub-folders to get to the data. If for some reason the "Import" folder is not an "On My Mac" folder, move it so that it becomes one. Once the process is compete, and you have verified that all your data is contained within that folder, you can safely delete iCloud as you will have a local backup of all your data. Then, if after re-installing iCloud, your data isn't there, you can simply move the local folders into newly created and properly labeled iCloud folders, after which they will appear on all your devices.

Wonderful post. Thanks so much. One question, is there any change if the primary Apple ID is already the POP account? It will not let me add the POP as an alternate and the Me account is an alternate. Can I proceed and skip the steps in the second bullet? Thanks in advance. mike

Thanks for all the help and the easy to follow instructions. I backed it up like you suggeted and that way made it much easier than what I was doing. When I was done, the cloud put it all back in place for me as you said but the prospect of having it all, or losing it, was my stopping block to moving forward. I am all synced up with 3 devices, talking to each other and working smoothly. I chose to backup only through the cloud and I think I have officially ingested the koolaid with the tools that are working as I hoped enabling me to do work at the places I chose to work from - the beach in between surf sessions! You are so helpful - thank you!

SMTP buggy Apple Mail

In the address title of the email Apple includes your return address. Take a look at it & make certain it is the return addres you want to use. Some how or other Apple was using myname@me.com instead of myname@yahoo.com

This was driving this little old lady crazy.

Hope it is the solution to your problem.

I couldn't find the complete server name on the iPad, so instead used the address in Mail Preference on my Mac. In my case, that incoming server name is p03-imap.mail.me.com.

Yes, that simplifies things. You can skip the second bullet.