GoldenA

Q: "Mail can't connect to the account 'Gmail'"

This issue arose this morning. Mail requests my Gmail account password and, after having entered it numerous times, continuously fails to connect to the account. Mail is failing to connect to both the incoming and outgoing servers, despite the correct information being entered for each. Furthermore, Mail now fails to connect to the IMAP server of the added iCloud account. I'm on a 2012 iMac running Mountain Lion and Mail 6.3. I've tried readding the Gmail account, to no avail. Any ideas?

MacBook Pro, OS X Mountain Lion, 13-inch, Mid 2009

Posted on May 15, 2013 11:02 AM

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Q: "Mail can't connect to the account 'Gmail'"

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  • by Venivu,

    Venivu Venivu May 28, 2015 4:33 PM in response to Christopher Corbettis1
    Level 1 (0 points)
    May 28, 2015 4:33 PM in response to Christopher Corbettis1

    Thank you! This worked like a charm after many efforts with other solutions.  Thank you!!

  • by Zipping,

    Zipping Zipping May 30, 2015 2:13 PM in response to jacquir
    Level 1 (79 points)
    iPhone
    May 30, 2015 2:13 PM in response to jacquir

    You are beautiful. This helped me.  It was driving me crazy.... Thanks for sharing this.

  • by John Zwiebel,

    John Zwiebel John Zwiebel Jun 17, 2015 10:59 AM in response to GoldenA
    Level 1 (49 points)
    Apple TV
    Jun 17, 2015 10:59 AM in response to GoldenA

    I checked out Christopher's suggestion of deleting my gmail password in the keychain when I discovered that there was a separate google password.

     

    IOW: mail.gmail.com and mail.google.com

     

    When I deleted the gmail entry, I was able to use the  accounts page from sysPrefs "Internet Accounts" to select all of the services including mail.

    I then went to mail and ensured that the google account was enabled.  This immediately downloaded all my imap emails.

     

    However, I had to quit mail and restart it to send emails.

     

    WARNING: when I was trying to use my gmail.com password that I found in the keychain, I had no idea there was also a mail.google.com password.  I had changed the mail.google.com password 3 months ago when I upgraded to Yosemite on my old MacBook Pro.  So this morning when I tried to get "gmail" to work on my new MacBook Pro through either the Internet Accounts screen in SysPrefs, or through the Preferences in Mail, it failed -- without explanation!

     

    Having forgotten the mail.google.com account, I changed my password (Let's call it PW3) using the google web pages, I was able to log onto the web pages.  After I had deleted the entries for mail.gmail.com and smtp.gmail.com (which used PW1) and accessing my google-mail account through Mail.preferences (which opened the Internet Accounts Screen in SysPrefs), Mail used my mail.google.com (PW2) to download all my emails.

     

    So, I've deleted PW1 from the keychain  (gmail.com)

    I've discovered PW2 remained in the keychain (google.com)

    I have PW3 @ the google web page.  (aggh).

     

    So, I created a PW4 which I changed using the google web pages.

    About 10 minutes later, a dialogue box popped up that asked if I wanted to save that PW.

    I now also have a keychain entry for: myaccount.google.com (email address)  in addition to the mail.google.com PW.

     

    All the passwords seem to be working.

  • by ROWRBAZZLE!,

    ROWRBAZZLE! ROWRBAZZLE! Jun 28, 2015 6:31 AM in response to twlaakso
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jun 28, 2015 6:31 AM in response to twlaakso

    Thanks for this suggestion. The complete user name for outgoing mail was not actually my problem ( I already had it set that way). But for the user name of incoming coming mail server, the complete address also seems to be an issue. So I have added @gmail.com to that as well. Hopefully that will resolve Google's security concern and not further intermittently disrupt accessing my email accounts with them.

  • by skippyskoppy,

    skippyskoppy skippyskoppy Jul 10, 2015 2:19 AM in response to GoldenA
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 10, 2015 2:19 AM in response to GoldenA

    Lots of the same issues. Finally trashed the gmail account in preferences and added via 'add other account' rather than 'google' and so far it works. Won't sync notes though for some reason, but at least gmail is back in my MAIL box...couldn't get used to working in the googlemail page!

  • by toroxo,

    toroxo toroxo Jul 13, 2015 6:18 PM in response to GoldenA
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 13, 2015 6:18 PM in response to GoldenA

    I know this is an old thread but I was having this issue and none of the solutions here were working but I finally got it. I signed into gmail from my browser, went to Settings, over to the Forwarding/POP and IMAP tab and clicked "enable IMAP." Doh. It finally seems to be working now.

  • by deavc,

    deavc deavc Aug 11, 2015 9:51 AM in response to ixmati
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Aug 11, 2015 9:51 AM in response to ixmati

    Hi, thanks a lot!

    You can't imagine how frustrating I was because I just couldn't set up a new google account email to Mail, two days trying...

    Than after finally setting up the account, Mails kept saying that my username or password was incorrect, and it was indeed!

    You gave me the solution (quite simple...), your username should be you full email address name@yourdomain.com (not just the name, which is tricking because there is a box just for your email address!), anyway, thanks!!!

  • by Mirandal14,

    Mirandal14 Mirandal14 Nov 2, 2015 12:11 PM in response to akarve
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 2, 2015 12:11 PM in response to akarve

    Thank you!!!!! This was it!

  • by Chris from OKI,

    Chris from OKI Chris from OKI Nov 5, 2015 8:51 AM in response to LooseNeutral
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 5, 2015 8:51 AM in response to LooseNeutral

    You've got to watch out for Googles tricky "Use Less Secure Apps" setting in your account, as I just just spent quite a few hours coming unhinged. that setting must be enabled to allow imap to work with Apple mail. I really like that little scare tactic from the GooGoblins.

    Click on your account picture

    select  Account from the drop down

    next to Personal info on the top menu items, select Security

    Look at bottom left pane named Account permissions - Access for less secure apps select Settings

    Select Enable

    Select Done

    ............

     

    Using your information fixed my issue. My iPad would not connect to my Gmail account. Changing to the less secure setting fixed it within 5 minutes.

     

    There wa no "done" button when I made the changes. I accessed my gmail account on the iPad using safari. Guess they updated the process slightly. I did get a security alert email to my "other" email address alerting me that the less secure setting had been selected.

  • by MrHoffman,

    MrHoffman MrHoffman Nov 5, 2015 11:23 AM in response to GoldenA
    Level 6 (15,627 points)
    Mac OS X
    Nov 5, 2015 11:23 AM in response to GoldenA

    FWIW, saw that exact behavior today.   Ended up re-entering the password in Network Accounts and rebooting, and the problem cleared.   I'd suspect that Google may have changed something in their configuration, or has some creeping crud somewhere in their server configuration.

  • by Adam Ritz,

    Adam Ritz Adam Ritz Nov 15, 2015 7:59 PM in response to GoldenA
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 15, 2015 7:59 PM in response to GoldenA

    I just spent an hour trying to figure this out.

    My original iPad wouldn't grab my Gmail through the Apple Mail app once I did Google's "security review".
    Couldn't find a way to enable it, until the sent me an email saying that an "unsecured app" was denied access, and a ink to "leaner more", THERE, final, was the button to allow my "unsecured app".
    Sheesh.

  • by George Chapman,

    George Chapman George Chapman Nov 30, 2015 5:04 PM in response to LooseNeutral
    Level 2 (350 points)
    Apple Watch
    Nov 30, 2015 5:04 PM in response to LooseNeutral

    TThis was my problem on my older MacBook. Enabled this less secure business for both my accounts and my wife's and things went ok.

  • by MrHoffman,

    MrHoffman MrHoffman Nov 30, 2015 6:51 PM in response to George Chapman
    Level 6 (15,627 points)
    Mac OS X
    Nov 30, 2015 6:51 PM in response to George Chapman

    Probably either an old version of SSL/TLS on the OS X or iOS device (10.9 and later are decent, 10.8 and prior not so much), or SSL/TLS was disabled on the connection?

  • by Troy Stanley,

    Troy Stanley Troy Stanley Dec 25, 2015 7:13 PM in response to MrHoffman
    Level 1 (25 points)
    Dec 25, 2015 7:13 PM in response to MrHoffman

    To fix it, I deleted "gmail" account.  Then created Google account using same user name and password.  All email appeared as it was in gmail.  It appears that Google is now the exchange server.

  • by t20,

    t20 t20 Dec 26, 2015 1:45 PM in response to LooseNeutral
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Dec 26, 2015 1:45 PM in response to LooseNeutral

    THANK YOU!!! what a crazy hidden setting, i was pulling my hair out and i consider myself savvy...

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