Q: mail can't connect to iCloud??

baconwrapped wrote:

 

Found this on another discussion about the same problem.... and it WORKED!

 

>>

What finally worked was to leave the @mac.com (or @me.com) off of my user name for the imap.mail.me.com settings.

<<

That worked for me also. I changed my username to exclude the "@mac.com" in SeaMonkey's Mail & Newsgroups Accounts... settings. The application prompted me to re-enter my password, but when I did the server accepted it, and all the mail that I haven't been able to receive since Friday came pouring into my Inbox.

I should clarify, however, that the IMAP server name shown in baconwrapped's post (above) is not the server name that I was using. The server name that works for me is simply "mail.mac.com". The port number (993) seems to be universally correct, no matter what server name you're using.

I have an associate who is using the "imap.mail.me.com" address, and it works fine for her. However, she's using Lion with full iCloud services, whereas I'm on Snow Leopard with mail-only service. I'm not sure why that would make any difference, but there it is. The "imap.mail.me.com" address works for her, and the "mail.mac.com" address definitely works for me.

I'm not sure exactly what started this whole nuisance, but it appears that somewhere along the line Apple changed the requirements for the username syntax. Before the problem appeared on Friday, March 1, the server required me to have the "@mac.com" domain as part of my username. The fix (...thanks baconwrapped!) means that now the server login wants only the username, but without the "@mac.com" (...or "@me.com") suffix.

I should clarify that apparently the solution also has worked for some folks whose usernames include the "@icloud.com" suffix. Dropping the suffix appears to be the solution no matter what mail domain name you're using.

However, because the problem did not universally affect all users, I'm hesitant to suggest that the "fix" is going to be a universal solution. There are still some questions about this issue that remain unanswered...for example, why Apple changed the username syntax required for IMAP server login in the first place.

Many thanks for this

I had a few additional steps/issues to resolve:

Deleted my old Mobile Me account

In iCloud Account:

Removed the suffix

Outgoing server was showing 'iCloud Offline'

Incoming server was showing 'iCloud.example' and greyed out.  Temporarily 'lost' my iCloud inbox

Mail suddenly reappeard

Not sure if iCloud is intermittent online/offline, but for the moment I seem to be fixed.

This solved my problem but a little too late now - back to my exchange account.

thanks very much for all though for suggesting the fix.

xlent fix thank you!

Thanks for this. It solved the problem right away.:)

Yep, worked for me too.  My service was sporadic -- sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't, probably depending on what email server I hit at the time.

This fix is in direct contradition to the following support document:

http://support.apple.com/kb/TS4002?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US

As a follow on to this issue.

Running Mountain Lion 10.8.2 with Apple Mail 6.2 (1499).

When I checked my e-mail accounts over the weekend, when the issue of Mail not being able to download from iCloud started, there was only one iCloud e-mail account set up, as there has always been.

Today, in looking at preferences again, there are two iCloud accounts, one of which was brand new and I had no hand in setting up.

As soon as I disabled the "old" account, then everything worked just perfectly.  No other changes made.

The thing to notice is that the incoming mail server on the "new" account is grayed out and it says p02-imap.mail.me.com.

The user name does not have a @mac.com, @me.com, @iCloud.com extension any more.

And the Outgoing Mail Server now says iCloud (iCloud) - maybe double repeated because of the account Description I used.

And under Advanced, the Authentication now says Apple Token instead of Password.  Port is still 993 with SSL enabled.

And one more new feature, there is an Alias pulldown just below the Description text box that lets you select which alias is your default address to send from.

This was obviously Apple's clumsy attempt to allow the user force a selected default address to use instead of defaulting to the 1st one in your list after breaking the very simple option to reply using the same account the message was sent to.

Also, the Full Name option is grayed out and just says Your Name unless you happen to pick the master Alias for the account.

But the good news is that the list of Aliases matches what's on the web - no need to type all of them in manually.  And there's an entry at the bottom of the list to Edit that pops you into your web based iCloud account.  That's a nice touch.

Where's Seth Meyers to say Really.... to this whole stupid ordeal.

Random side note, don't you love the built in spell checker flagging iCloud as a misspelled word.  Come on Apple, you can't even get your own terms built in to your own dictionary.  Or maybe that's because iCloud really is a bad word.

This worked for me to Baconwrapped YOU SIR ROCK thanks

All the above solutions did not work for me - I could not enable mail and notes in the icloud preferences - when adding a icloud IMAP Abbount in Mail preferences it always gave me an error message that it cannot connect with the p06-imap.mail.me.com server - other attemts I tried: prem reset, delete list file, change port settings etc. - nothing helped - after several attempts I found a solution:

1. go to preferences - icloud and log off from your account.

2. shut off imac

3. disconnect router (that is the key - since sometime the ports get mixed up)

4.restart system

5.start router and connect

6.open preferences and icloud

7.log in with your apple id - and voila....mail and notes are ready to sync

I started having this issue yesterday on Mavericks MBP. No upgrade or software install to cause any conflict. I then decided to follow some of the ideas here.

I could not edit the incoming mail server as it is greyed out. I went into advanced and all setting were as advised.

I tried various things including deleting the account and re-establishing it on my MBP. This still continued with iCloud offline error. Final idea was close mail app and reopen it. That sorted it. Nothing more complicated than that. I should have tried that first.

Thanks for that, GaryHind! I ws having the same problem. Restarting Mail solved it.