Mail shows my SMTP is "offline": How do I get my SMTP "online"?

Sorry, but I don't know what you are talking about.

If a discussion is two years old, it would appear that it's because no one has come up with a clear solution yet. I have spent several hours talking to tech people at Apple and with my service provider, and no one at either place has a solution.

I have hesitated to start my own discussion simply because I do not wish to start a separate discussion on a topic which already has been initiated by others. It would seem to be good to keep things together.

Absolutely terrible Apple. All my SMTP accounts offline. Can't send emails. I've looked at solutions on this board and it seems like people are willing to wait months to solve this. Gonna have to find another email client.

So what? Steve Jobs dies and it all goes to pot. Next computer will be a PC!!!

Juz read your postings. Have you resolved your issues? Your problem does not appear to be related to the current thread.

Your case seems to be that your emails could not be delivered because your account is blocked. Your account need not be necessarily blacklisted as it could be your host server (i.e. your internet service provider) that is blacklisted. I suggest you create another email account such as with gmail if you have not already done so. I hope this will help.

All:

I too was not able to send email due to outgoing mail server offline. A simple solution solved the issue. Delete your Mail email account info and reinstall. Go to Mail then Preferences and select Accounts. Your email service is listed in the left column. Select your email service and delete with the "minus" symbol at the bottom of the column.

Once deleted, go to System Preferences. Select "Internet Accounts". Select your email service or scroll to the bottom and select "Add Other Account". Whichever you choose, from the drop down window select "Add a Mail Account" and select "Create". Complete the account information using your same email address and password. Once you have completed the account creation, open Mail. All previous mail is temporarily not visible. Send yourself an email. Open your incoming email and your email messages will reinstall. Everything should work properly.

Hope this works for you. I'm using Mail 7.3 and OS X 10.9.5.

None of this works, I have been on the phone to Apple and used EVERY suggestion on google and apple forums and nothing can stop the random ceasing of mail services.. even my iCloud acc stops working, this is total ********.. Apple needs to pull its finger out and fix the app.

This fixed my problem. In fact, I had recently changed my password. And it seems while OSX prompted me to update my account password, it never asked for my outgoing password (it should just have the option to use the same account as incoming).

I used a less drastic solution that deleting the entire mail account. Instead I deleted only the outgoing smtp accounts and set them up again with exactly the same information. Before deleting I did screen shots of the smtp information (I used the passwords from keychain where I did not know them. It fixed my gmail, aol, and a third party generic server from my business. This also does not force you to delete passwords and such.

Go to Mail>Preferences>Mail Account>Account Information>Outgoing Mail Server (SMTP)> choose "edit SMTP server list" from dropdown menu.

Copy down information from the offline account and create a new account with that information. Then delete the existing account and save.

I changed password for my mail on the Internet Accounts page. I assumed this would work for both receiving and sending mail as it has before. However only the incoming mail password was changed. I got the message that my SMTP is "offline". I had to go to the "Outgoing Mail Server (SMTP) box, click on it and then click on the "Edit SMTP Server List". Then click on the "Advanced" button and enter the updated password in the "Password" box.

Hi,

I am a new user of mac and Yosemite OS. i had issues regrading the setup of email in Yosemite. i was having no problem in receiving mails on both Yahoo, and Gmail , but faced problem while i try to send a mail. i tried many options in the net and apple communities and tried at least 30 suggestions. at last i tried some thing unique and now all my mails (Yahoo,Gmail and cloud) is working perfectly...

Here is what i did.

open launchpad-click mail- frm mail menu click-add account- select gmail first enter typing user name and password( if u have app specific password then type it) finish settings by checking all tabs (mails,contacts etc)

second-select yahoo-enter typing username and password( if u have app specific password thn type it) finish settings

and finally setup icloud..

PLS follow the same procedure. setup icloud lastly

try this and this worked well for me. Hope u will also find this working..

HINT- there are many other options and each works well for different different users. i tried almost 9 hrs and made it ok. i am not a computer genious but tried all sorts .

if u found this working pls help others by directing this technique to them. and pls feel free to ask any questions. if i know i will try to answer ..

thanks

arun

MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Mid 2014), OS X Yosemite (10.10.1), null

"I changed password for my mail on the Internet Accounts page. I assumed this would work for both receiving and sending mail as it has before. However only the incoming mail password was changed. I got the message that my SMTP is "offline". I had to go to the "Outgoing Mail Server (SMTP) box, click on it and then click on the "Edit SMTP Server List". Then click on the "Advanced" button and enter the updated password in the "Password" box. "

This worked for me too!

Thanks.

OS X Yosimite ver 10.10.1

Mail 8.1

delete all ur mail settings. manually delete mail server settings.. save all settings.. restart mac and re enter all ur mail settings.if ur mail settings is being protected by an app specific pw, thn open ur mail in a pc and create an app specific pw and enter the same in mac...

save all settings and chk..

this will work..

Thanks Aries_bri, your solution solved my problem... Deleting keychain entries for my email account and then re-entering passwords did the trick. It's a a downer when some app which should make your life easier actually complicates things...

I was having the exact same issue. Receiving mail just fine, but unable to send. got the smtp "offline" message. I tried each and every suggestion here. I deleted user names and passwords and created a different password and passwords in keychain access. I was online with tech support and with my internet service provider. Nothing worked. The final conclusion was to reload the OS.

The fix I found without reloading the OS for anyone with this problem: I have two different email addresses. Each uses an outgoing smtp server. I made each "none". When I did this I on the second email I got the message: "The servers marked with alert icons are in conflict and cannot be saved. Two servers cannot share the same address and authentication settings. Resolve the conflicts and try again."

This prompted a blank username screen which I'd never gotten without manually deleting the username. But, I put in the username and entered a different smtp address for each email, both of which were in a scroll down menu, but I just assigned a different one to each email address. After that sending worked perfectly. I tested both emails several times and each worked and is still working. I'm not sure what caused the dilemma-I've been using this app for over two years, but I hope the same solution works in the event it sporadically happens again.

What I realized is that I never mentioned to any tech support that I have two different email accounts. This was ultimately important information. I didn't think it was and therefore failed to divulge that information. Had I done so, it could have remedied the problem much sooner. So, if you have multiple email accounts, this may be the quicker fix.

The keychain password solution worked for me temporarily but when I rebooted the computer the problem returned. In my case I think it has something to do with the trust certificate. I do not use the main mail providers like gmail, yahoo or AOL but use the service provider hosting my website to provide me with my email service. I have to authenticate the certificate from time to time to continue receiving and sending email. I was using email from a different location for a couple of days and this seemed to have triggered a block on my outgoing server. I eventually discovered in the keychain app a couple of entries relevant to my service provider which were blocking the SMTP. I removed them from the keychain list and then tried sending messages again, this time I got a window which requested that I confirm an exception to the trust certificate and since then the email seems to be working normally... However this may change.Keeping fingers crossed.

Hi Barbara

Just to say 'Thank you'.

I developed the same problem with outgoing mail after upgrading to Yosemite a couple of months ago.

Tried your suggestions & found the problem. It worked & now I can once again send emails. What a relief!

Many thanks again.