DeMinister
Level 1 (10 points)

Q: How to clear all E-mail accounts from Maverick iCloud Sync

My problem is the following: I have quite a lot of e-mail accounts that I do not use anymore, these email accounts do not show up in the system preferences "internet Accounts" in Maverick. Maverick simply forget numerous "other email accounts" while mail accounts like AOL and Gmail are all visible.

It is very annoying to see all those old email accounts popping up at the most unexpected moments or simply replacing my existing email accounts.

 

Now I work around the problem by disabling them in my Apple mail settings, but that does not always work out either. The disabled accounts do not show up in the email accounts in system preferences either and when I change certain details in existing accounts they will be changed back by iCloud.

 

So what I want to do is to clear all my email accounts that are synchronised through iCloud at once. Maybe there is a terminal command or another way to reset iCloud. The aim is to make a fresh start, so to replace all existing accounts with those on my production machine.

Mac OS X (10.7.5)

Posted on Aug 18, 2014 8:50 AM

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Q: How to clear all E-mail accounts from Maverick iCloud Sync

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  • by Paul_31,

    Paul_31 Paul_31 Aug 18, 2014 9:04 AM in response to DeMinister
    Level 6 (13,870 points)
    Aug 18, 2014 9:04 AM in response to DeMinister

    Rather than just disabling them in Apple Mail, you could select the account in Mail>Preferences>Accounts and click on the 'minus' button at the bottom left of the window to remove the account completely.

  • by DeMinister,

    DeMinister DeMinister Aug 18, 2014 9:08 AM in response to Paul_31
    Level 1 (10 points)
    Aug 18, 2014 9:08 AM in response to Paul_31

    That is precisely the problem. The email accounts are not showing up in the system preferences. If they did it was a matter of hitting de "minus" button and than "remove from all devices".  In earlier versions of Maverick at least a handful of "other email accounts" were showing up, in the last few versions from Maverick no other email accounts are showing up at all.  The only accounts showing are the AOL, Google, Twitter etc. accounts.

  • by Paul_31,

    Paul_31 Paul_31 Aug 18, 2014 9:12 AM in response to DeMinister
    Level 6 (13,870 points)
    Aug 18, 2014 9:12 AM in response to DeMinister

    Not System Preferences, but Mail>Preferences - do they not appear as shown in the image below?

     

    Screen Shot 2014-08-18 at 18.09.23.png

  • by DeMinister,

    DeMinister DeMinister Aug 18, 2014 9:20 AM in response to Paul_31
    Level 1 (10 points)
    Aug 18, 2014 9:20 AM in response to Paul_31

    There are two issues when I do so. First of all I have "ghost" accounts who do not show up in my e-mail preferences but keep on showing up randomly. Secondly I cannot remove "other accounts" in Mail>Preferences I will get the following error message: The account "XXXX.XXXX.Com"  is shared using iCloud. You can remove this account from iCloud in Internet Accounts.

    And in iCloud internet accounts the particular account will not be visible.

  • by Csound1,

    Csound1 Csound1 Aug 18, 2014 9:22 AM in response to DeMinister
    Level 9 (50,307 points)
    Desktops
    Aug 18, 2014 9:22 AM in response to DeMinister

    DeMinister wrote:

     

    So what I want to do is to clear all my email accounts that are synchronised through iCloud at once. Maybe there is a terminal command or another way to reset iCloud. The aim is to make a fresh start, so to replace all existing accounts with those on my production machine.

    iCloud accounts end in @icloud, @me or @mac, nothing else is synchronised via iCloud.

     

    AOL, Gmail, Yahoo etc are all synchronised using their own servers.

  • by Eric Root,

    Eric Root Eric Root Aug 18, 2014 9:24 AM in response to DeMinister
    Level 9 (70,250 points)
    iTunes
    Aug 18, 2014 9:24 AM in response to DeMinister

    Try System Preferences/iCloud and de-select the Mail checkbox.

  • by DeMinister,

    DeMinister DeMinister Aug 18, 2014 9:26 AM in response to Csound1
    Level 1 (10 points)
    Aug 18, 2014 9:26 AM in response to Csound1

    Actually all my email accounts are synchronised through iCloud also my Google, twitter or AOL accounts. If I create a new emails account I cloud will add the account to all of my machines.

  • by DeMinister,

    DeMinister DeMinister Aug 18, 2014 9:27 AM in response to Eric Root
    Level 1 (10 points)
    Aug 18, 2014 9:27 AM in response to Eric Root

    Yes, but than the email accounts are still in the cloud. It will no longer synchronise with that particular machine but it is still out there. I want to have all of my email accounts (also the accounts that I cannot see in the system preferences) removed from I cloud so I can start clean.

  • by Csound1,

    Csound1 Csound1 Aug 18, 2014 9:29 AM in response to DeMinister
    Level 9 (50,307 points)
    Desktops
    Aug 18, 2014 9:29 AM in response to DeMinister

    No they are not.

     

    If you wish to see which accounts are being sync'd via iCloud then go to System Preferences>iCloud and look. Usually there is only one and it will be an iCloud account, not an AOL or Gmail account.

     

    If you look in Internet Accounts you see all of the accounts that are synchronized via your Mac, but most of them are not iCloud.

  • by DeMinister,

    DeMinister DeMinister Aug 18, 2014 9:34 AM in response to Csound1
    Level 1 (10 points)
    Aug 18, 2014 9:34 AM in response to Csound1

    No that is what I try to tell you. Most of my email accounts are simply not showing up in the system preferences. I cannot remove them through my mail preferences (I can however make them inactive) but although they show up in the mail preferences they do NOT show up in the System preferences.

    I am a long time Mac user, in earlier OS X versions you could reset the sync folder. (mobile me etc) no that seems impossible.

     

    So my situation is as following: I have around 40 email accounts showing up in my mail preferences

    I have 18 showing up in my System preferences, the remainder are not visible.

  • by Csound1,

    Csound1 Csound1 Aug 18, 2014 10:17 AM in response to DeMinister
    Level 9 (50,307 points)
    Desktops
    Aug 18, 2014 10:17 AM in response to DeMinister

    I am trying to tell you that unless they are iCloud accounts they will not be in iCloud, looking for them there will not find them.

     

    As to where they are I have no idea at the moment.

     

    Take a screenshot of the accounts sidebar in Mail, let's see what you see.

  • by DeMinister,

    DeMinister DeMinister Aug 18, 2014 10:34 AM in response to Csound1
    Level 1 (10 points)
    Aug 18, 2014 10:34 AM in response to Csound1

    Maybe a misunderstanding, but all email accounts will be synchronised through iCloud if the keychain in >system preferences>iCloud is enabled.

    Now here could be the solution. If I can wipe the keychain clean the problem will most probably be solved.

  • by Csound1,

    Csound1 Csound1 Aug 18, 2014 10:45 AM in response to DeMinister
    Level 9 (50,307 points)
    Desktops
    Aug 18, 2014 10:45 AM in response to DeMinister

    All email account passwords will be synchronised via the keychain. The accounts themselves will not.

  • by DeMinister,

    DeMinister DeMinister Aug 18, 2014 10:50 AM in response to Csound1
    Level 1 (10 points)
    Aug 18, 2014 10:50 AM in response to Csound1

    Okay that is clear, but when I create a new email address with my keychain enabled they will immediately pop up on all other devices. If I remove email accounts after disabling the keychain, the removed accounts re-appear again as soon as I enable the keychain again.

    There must be a way to wipe all "shared" email accounts?

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