Q: Mail keeps asking for Yahoo password

I've been having this problem - I believe since Lion.  I'm on Mountain Lion 10.8.2 now.  This happens only with my yahoo account.  About once a week - and is very problematic for about a day - and then finally after many times reentering my password - it stops - but then shows up again in a few days.  Connection doctor shows all connections are connecting just fine - even while the "enter password for yahoo" window is displayed.

I have this problem too, and I agree it's most annoying! It takes several attempts for Yahoo to settle down and access my mail and then randomly in a few days it starts all over again. What's the solution Apple Geniuses?

That password prompt often appears when the mail server does not respond quickly enough to a request from Mail.app. I use Mail.app with multiple email providers and the Yahoo! IMAP service is easily the most unreliable.

For the sake of clarity, can you please confirm that you have it set up as an IMAP account?

Secondly, if you do, try changing the mailbox settings so that draft messages are not stored on the server, and that it Never permanently erases deleted messages (you will still be able to do this manually).  I have found that these changes helped.

This seems to have worked, thank you!

I believe I just changed it a while back so that it does permanently erase deleted message and that it does store various messages (junk) on the server - the exact opposite of what you are suggesting.  I can't say that changing these settings caused the problem - because I believe I was seeing the problem prior to doing that.  I see a similar behavior with my yahoo account on my iphone and ipad.  I don't get a lot of email on my yahoo account - but I do believe there is quite a bit of spam and other junk email that comes through it - and I'm wondering is that is contributing to the problem.  I have quite a few different email accounts set up on my Macs and iDevices.  I will try your suggestion

For my Gmail account - I had to tell it to store mail on the server and also to permanently delete messages - to get around the fact that Google never deletes anything - but rarely - if at all - do I see this particular problem with my gmail account - it's mostly yahoo.

Okay, sorry, Rodney W, I tried your workaround but as usual with this Yahoo issue, the problem randomly came back and it's as annoying as ever.

To Rodney W - I have tried your suggested workaround - with a slight modification.

On my Macs and iOS devices - I have set the mailbox options not to store any items on the server (not just drafts) and I have set auto delete to "Never".  So basically - everything is being stored on my Mac/iOS device and I must manually delete items.  In this configuration - I am losing some functionality - in that I can't see sent items from one device - on another - and cannot start a draft email on one device and pick it up on another.  For my yahoo account - this is not a big issue - because I rarely send email from the yahoo account.

So far - I have not been prompted for my yahoo password - on any Mac or iOS device - but ... it has still been less than 24 hours since making these changes.  I will keep a close watch on it.

To Rodney and Chet ...

Since my last post a few days ago - I have not seen the Yahoo popup at all.  The changes I made (described in my previous post) seem to have had a postive impact on the problem.

One additional thing that I am noticing is that my Mac Mail has not locked up when trying to exit.  It had been locking up periodically when attempting to quit mail - for no apparent reason.  I believe the mail lockups started occurring shortly after the Yahoo popups started occurring.  Maybe the two problems are related.

I will keep a close eye on this.

The delay on close of Mail.app is definitely caused by Mail.app and Yahoo! failing to communicate properly over the deletion of items in Trash.  I have tested that quite thoroughly.

The passwords issue seems to be unrelated (in a direct sense), but I have found it works most reliably if the only time that Mail.app needs to communicate with the Yahoo! servers is retrieiving, marking and sending email.

I still get regular "hang-ups" where deletions are not recorded though.

This only happens with Yahoo! - Mail.app works perfectly (for me) with iCloud, Gmail and Fastmail.

Cheers,

RW

I am pretty sure that I started noticing this with Mountain Lion - and it did not matter whether it was a clean install or an upgrade.  And yes - it is "only" with Yahoo.

~Scott

Chet - I have had all the services unchecked (other than mail) for the Yahoo! account pretty much since day one - and I was still having the problem up until recently - when I joined this discussion.

~Scott

The problem is back as of this morning.  At least 5 occurences of the invalid password for Yahoo! popup.  So far - still no locking up upon quitting mail.

This problem in Yahoo mail comes when the number of mails on the server are large, either from the sent folder or trash or inbox or draft. This large load increases the server login time and it asks for the password.

Best is to make additional folders of inbox and sent folders and transfer the mails to this folder, where you can see them whenever you desire and it keeps the load on the server low. Try and keep the mails in the inbox and the sent folders for a month or two only, and keep the trash empty. In the draft keep as minimum mails as possible.

Try it and it solves the problem.

I sufferred for almost a year, and then I found out this as a solution. whenever this problem starts, reduce load on the server by transfering the mails from your inbox etc to your computer folders.