Cannot send email using smtp.mail.me.com in OSX/Mail

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Level 1

22 points

Cannot send email using smtp.mail.me.com in OSX/Mail

I am trying to set up my email account in Mail so that I can use my iCloud account as the IMAP account for an email address under my personal domain. iMac 2010 i5 running Mountain Lion 10.8.2

On my first attempt, I got my iCloud email setup and working in Mail. That was fine. Then, I tried going into preferences and using the Alias "Custom" setting to switch the email address to my personal email address. That worked okay for receiving email, but would not send, since the iCloud account setting for Outgoing Mail Server (SMTP) is automatically set to "iCloud" which does not seem to work for non-iCloud email addresses.

After googling the problem, I found a reference that said that if I need to do this, I need to configure Mail Preferences/Account manually. So I did that, using the settings described here: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4864

Again, I can receive email, but not send.

Using smtp.mail.me.com and myuserid@icloud.com, I cannot send email - I get a message saying "cannot send message using the server smtp.mail.me.com".

I click on Connection Doctor, and smtp.mail.me.com shows a green light - everything looks fine. Plus, at the time that I set up the account manually, the outgoing server connected properly.

Does anyone have any idea how I can get the outgoing email working for iCloud?

Cheers.

iMac (21.5-inch Mid 2010), OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.2)

Posted on Sep 21, 2012 1:48 PM

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Answer 1

dave108 Author

Level 1

22 points

Sep 22, 2012 11:27 AM in response to dave108

In case anyone lands on this thread looking to do something similar ...

There is a workaround whereby you set the incoming server connections as per the support link from Apple that appears above, but set the outgoing server to some other server. Since my iMac never moves from my home, I simply set my outgoing server to be my ISP's SMTP server, and that account setup works fine for sending and receiving from iCloud, using my own domain.

However, the situation gets a bit more tricky for the iPhone. Since you will sometimes be on your home network over wifi, sometimes on your mobile provider's network, and sometimes on a "foreign" wifi network, ideally you want to use an outgoing SMTP server that will allow you access from anywhere.

I tried using the outgoing SMTP server for a paid IMAP service that I use, and it worked on the iPhone for sending and receiving from iCloud, using my personal domain.

However, this iPhone approach is unsatisfactory, since iCloud does not seem to make the Sent, Junk, and Trash folders available "On the Server" under Advanced settings / Mailbox Behaviours, which means that those messages will be saved on the iPhone only. Only Inbox is visible on the server. This sort of defeats the purpose of using an IMAP email service.

I give up.

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Answer 2

Sep 21, 2012 2:14 PM in response to dave108

You cannot send using iCloud's SMTP server with anything other than your iCloud address as the 'from' address: attempts to use another service's address will, as you have found, be blocked.

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Answer 3

dave108 Author

Level 1

22 points

Sep 21, 2012 2:17 PM in response to Roger Wilmut1

Is this documented anywhere? This pretty standard stuff for IMAP servers, which I understood iCloud to be.

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Answer 4

Sep 21, 2012 3:00 PM in response to dave108

I found a reference, after a little digging: http://support.apple.com/kb/PH2635 says:

If you use smtp.me.com for your SMTP server, make sure you turn on SMTP authentication in your email program using your iCloud account name and password, and make sure the email address in the From field of your email message matches your iCloud account name. If the trouble continues, have your email program use your ISP’s SMTP server instead

(My emphasis.) What you want to do may be standard with other IMAP servers but evidently Apple have set this restriction as a matter of policy.

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Answer 5

dave108 Author

Level 1

22 points

Sep 22, 2012 10:36 AM in response to Roger Wilmut1

Sigh... but Thanks!

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Answer 6

Sep 26, 2012 12:35 PM in response to dave108

Thanks for this...it solved my issue of trying to get my POP emails from my work account to appear in the cloud sent folder--now, messages sent from my imac and macbook are in sync. Next up, iphone and ipad.

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Answer 7

dave108 Author

Level 1

22 points

Sep 26, 2012 1:08 PM in response to scottntexas

Actually, I managed to get this working on my iPad, and see no reason why it would not work on the iPhone.

The mistake I made when trying this before: I was making changes to an existing mail account. Apparently this can cause problems with Mail account set-up.

Instead, I made my existing Mail account inactive, and started a new account from scratch. This time, it worked. Using ICloud's incoming IMAP Server with my iCloud userid, and using the email address from my personal domain (as the name/reply-to), and using a third party SMTP server for outgoing mail, I was able to send and receive Mail under my own domain, on my iPad. All my iCloud folders showed up normally in Mail.

So the only drawback that I can see to using iCloud for a personal domain is that you have to find a suitable outgoing SMTP server for when you're on somebody else's network.

Cheers.

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Answer 8

Sep 26, 2012 2:27 PM in response to dave108

Genius, everything is working in sync, imac, macbook, ipad, and iphone. thanks for the direction.

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Answer 9

CliveS

Level 1

23 points

Dec 5, 2012 3:08 AM in response to dave108

Some people won't like doing this. But I have Gmail as my outgoing server. One advantage - I've yet to find an ISP/Network that I can't send from.

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