After installing Maverick Mail keeps asking for passwords for all accounts. No matter how many times I put them in I still can't get any emails

Solution is to empty the keychain.

1 Open Filder

2 Click GO

3 Hold alter

4 Double click Library

5 Search fo Keychain folder

6 double click Keychain folder

7 Move all files in Keychain folder to Trash

8 Reboot

Hans, I can get to the library so it's no big deal. However I am curious what you meant in step 3 "Hold alter"? What exactly does that mean.

I happened on this thread in my search for a solution to my problem which is:

New Macbook Pro running Mavericks. Copied profile over and moved applications. Outlook:Mac continues to request password for all accounts (random which gets asked for, some work then stop working). Everything else appears to be working normally.

Keeping the keychain intact, I deleted the keychain entries for each account and re-checked the "save password to keychain" checkbox when logging in again. No change.

I really don't want to nuke the entire keychain folder to resolve this since I think it's a rights issue and fixing that would be a better solution.

Anyone else seeing this?

Password – Mail keeps asking for Password

Password not Saved

Alancito's workaround worked for a while, then back to asking for passwords, a side issiue i have had since installing Mavericks is that Mail wont quit, and allways has to be force quit.

Hans's idea of deleting the keychain items not only stopped Mail from asking for passwords, but now it quits as well... Beachball has left the building! Thanks Hans and Alancito for your time

PS Im sure Hans meant hit option from the finder go menu and the libary will appear..

option

Eric,

I would have thought that this was a possibility... (Keychain locking again). Now after trying to clean up some other things I am seeing some other weird stuff. Mainly I am unable to delete an app in the Applications folder and when I can delete something (Using Command+Delete) it deletes it immediately. (Nothing in Trash, item(s) gone). This is leading me to thinking that its a Permissions/Rights/ACLs issue.

I will first check to see if the Keychain is in fact locking prematurely. After I will next try this solution:
http://www.needhelp4mac.com/2013/11/use-os-x-recovery-disk-assistant-to-reset-yo ur-files-and-folder-permissions/

Thanks for the suggestions.

Same problem, Apple Mail on Mavericks 10.9.3, not remembering passwords for Mail accounts. It remembers my wireless network passwords no problem.

So I moved my internal HD from my Mac at work, to an enclosure and booted our Mac at home with it, and suddenly no problem with Apple Mail remembering the mail and wireless passwords.

Both Macs are MacBook Pro, one an early 2007 (mail not working), the other a mid 2009 MacBook Pro (mail working).

Can the Machine ID somehow affect the Keychain passwords? It's the identical HD on both Macs.

Same problem here. Sometimes when I open email it says it can't connect and to enter the password, even though it's right there in my keychain. I have a lot of strong passwords so I have to actually to go my keychain to get the passwords for each account (it is also unlocked for this and works fine most of the time, or it has, except for some bumps after different updates in the past I think).

It's almost like something is out of order when the Mac wakes up now, like if mail was already open it starts trying to refresh email accounts before the password access part "wakes up".

And it takes a while, as it took me minutes to go through my keychain to get the various passwords and it was still prompting for each account. This seems to happen to me most after waking up from sleep lately it seems.

I did look into the solution of using "apple token" instead of password under advanced, but I need to use private imap emails that are not icloud, and that option is not there for them.

netsoup ~ You probably are on the latest version (10.9.3) of Mavericks, but just to dispel any doubts, see this ASC tutorial:

Update your product list

Also, in case you haven't seen this Apple doc:

iCloud: Troubleshooting iCloud Mail

And a free alternative to Apple's keychain:

https://lastpass.com

Thanks for the reply. I am totally up to date, no updates available.

The problem isn't icloud email. The problem is Mavericks not reading the keychain intermittently, and blanking out my passwords now, though it works most of the time. Most of the recent problems seem after it wakes from sleep, email app not reading the keychain though I can manually pull up the keychain, and yes, I have the keychain unlocked and it works most of the time.

I've had Macs for years through various OS versions. This seems like a bug that came over with Mavericks, and I'm not sure if it is related to my choice to enable iCloud keychain, as I enabled that right away too. It still works mostly but some bug seems related to things waking up in the wrong order sometimes maybe.

I do understand there are alternatives, but I did pay a lot for a Mac and the capabilities it had. It seems a little copout to not insist somehow these new bugs get fixed versus brushing them over. One of the reasons I never used 3rd party was the wonderful integration between Mac and iDevice, even synching email accounts over to device email settings, something apple would not allow a 3rd party to implement on IOS. Since apple ripped that out recently too, taking away that fine integration feature in favor for these icloud partial replacements, looking at 3rd party apps more I will, since the iPhone account setting push is no longer an issue, for better or worse...

I have friends that use lastpass but I really did prefer Keychain and I did pay a lot for a Mac that handled saving passwords fine. Seems a little hokey to need a 3rd party password saver on a Mac because mail can't read Mac's own keychain off and on randomly...

Are you saying lastpass integrates with apple email and automatically fills in the passwords so you can just open email and it works more often automatically entering passwords into apple email than apple's email/keychain do together?

My passwords are still saved right there in keychain fine and I can manually pull them up, it's just that mavericks email app is not reading the keychain randomly, usually after waking from sleep, requireing me to go through my keychain passwords and re-enter the non-icloud email passwords. It seems to remember the icloud account password fine (set to apple token as suggested).

It seems like moving to lastpass I'd still have the same issue of constantly re-entering email passwords, something I haven't had to do for years of using a Mac until recently.

netsoup wrote:

Are you saying lastpass integrates with apple email and automatically fills in the passwords so you can just open email and it works more often automatically entering passwords into apple email than apple's email/keychain do together?

No — I believe it only automates entry of passwords into websites. That's what I use it for anyway and, luckily, Mail app works in Mavericks for me via Apple's keychain.

LastPass is particularly handy when I'm away from my Mac on a public computer. I can log into iCloud mail (and other sites) via LastPass and not have to remember a variety of strong passwords. ...So even though I'm fairly sure LastPass won't work for Mail app, it can come in handy elsewhere. Plus, they were pro-active when the Heartbleed bug hit:

Updating Passwords in the Wake of Heartbleed

LastPass' Joe Siegrist: Protecting the Digital World, One Password at a Time

Cool. I realize this doesn't solve this particular issue for me but thank you very much for the info.

Currently, I use the iCloud keychain for just that. If you enable iCloud keychain on your Mac and your iPhone (or iPad), it lets you merge Safari saved web autofill passwords and also lets you review them from iPhone settings under "Safari->Passwords & Autofill" to pull up any web password if you enter your security PIN. It was a good addition of Mavericks and IOS7, unfortunately issues with email came with it and Mavericks/iTunes/IOS7 also took away the ability to synch email settings to IOS which worked awesome via USB for years. Still, the ability for "lastpass-type" keychain synching between Mavericks and IOS7 was a good addition, negative ancillaries aside.

Since keychain still works for you with OSX mail, I am wondering if using iCloud keychain is the issue, like maybe Mavericks is trying to refresh mail on wake before it can get it's "iCloud keychain" act together... I'd hate to give up the website keychain synching between ios and osx, but maybe ditching icloud keychain for lastpass is the answer... I'll think about this, and thanks again for the info!