I bought my wife a new MacBook Air and Mail will not set properly for her .mac account through iCloud. I go through the setup process but the account will not go online. When I look at the settings the Incoming Mail Server keeps defaulting to mail.example.com despite the fact that it is entered correctly during the setup process. I have tried the Connection Doctor and it just spins endlessly trying to connect iCloud.
Thank you, but I have already done all that. My problem is that the incoming server setting keeps changing to the generic entry and the option of changing it is grayed out in the settings.
Are you setting up a POP or IMAP mail account? If you chose POP, but it's IMAP, then that will happen because the server is an IMAP server. Maybe you should delete the account and start over but follow the instructions carefully.
When you open Mail, Contacts, Calendars preferences to configure a new account be sure to choose the first option, iCloud. It should set up almost automatically.
I am having exactly the same problem, and I am 100% positive I am following the correct procedure. I have setup MobileMe/iCloud accounts on more macs than I care to mention. I am definitely selecting iCloud as the account type, inputting the correct user and password, following the prompts (of which there are very few). Once the account is created, none of the settings are correct, Incoming Mail Server is grayed out as mail.example.com, Outgoing mail Server is set to none and shows iCloud offline. Even the account description I had set in a previous window is wrong, it defaults back to the generic 'iCloud' name.
As mentioned, this procedure is almost automatic most of the time. This is some sort of anomaly that I have never seen before, and yes I have sent a note to Apple. This reply is for the original poster, confirming that there is an issue that is not a user error situation.
I've been a MobileMe user since its inception, and I have seen countless little anomolies like this come and go. I suspect it will eventually just start working again. But right now it's not working for at least some users.
I did a custom setup and instead of using iCloud I set it to IMAP. That got the account to go online and it now gets email. But it will not send any emails. It keeps rejecting the server and iCloud is listed as offline. I've also double checked against the settings for Mail on my MacBook Pro, which works fine.
Why are you setting it up manually? Just go to sys pref >> iCloud, sign in with her account and make sure there's a check beside mail.
Apple's mail servers requre authentication, so you must choos one method using your email username and password. Try these to help get set up right:
I'm setting it up manually because as I said, the aurtomatic setup won't work. It keeps defaulting to a generic incoming email server of "mail.example.com" and the option to change it is grayed out and not selectable.
The setup assistant was helpful. She's sending and receiving mail now. The steps didn't match what was actually on my screen, but there was enough info there to muddle through to figure it out. Like boffer said, over the years I have set up Mail dozens and dozens of times with various account on various devices and this is the first time it was a genuine pain. It doesn't help that support material doesn't match the latest OS screen options.
Thanks Kappy! You made up Happy.
Actually, we are now back to not working. It worked for a moment, but logining to her iCloud in the System Settings as imp68 suggested actually screwed it all up again. Now the setup assistant isn't resolving the problem.
Arrrrgh!
Finally back in business. It took a few passes through the setup assistant to get all the correct settings to stick. Mail's oreferences kept defaulting to the wrong things and wouldn't save the changes, but it's all corrected now . . . fingers crossed!
iCloud Mail won't set up on brand new MacBook Air
