Exchange & Mail: how to change username?

Hello community,

I have a weird behavior on my Mac OS X Yosemite native application Mail :-) I actually want to use seamlessly my corporate Exchange email account on my iPhone, iPad and Mac. The latter doesn't work for outgoing emails (SMTP server seems disconnected). I figured out that on my iOS devices, I can actually change the username which differs a little bit with the auto-discovery username that Mac OS X set automatically.

One screenshot from my Mail application:

Screenshot from my iPhone:

Any idea on how we can change the username which should be mschoonbroodt@pfsweb.com instead of just using mschoonbroodt? I checked it as well on the Microsoft OWA and I need to use the @pfsweb.com to login. Why is it greyed out on the Mac and not on iOS devices? Any idea if I can modify some files via the Unix terminal?

See the STMP server is disconnected which is not good at all. Receiving works, I know it's weird - but on my iPhone both works thus I'd like to try a username change.

Thank you for your support.

MacBook Air, OS X Yosemite (10.10), Mail

Posted on Oct 21, 2014 4:48 PM

22 replies

Apr 2, 2015 6:45 AM in response to Eric Root

top man thanks

Ezun

Level 1

4 points

Jun 28, 2015 7:10 PM in response to the_red_skin

Ok, so I had the same issue, yet even with turning off KeyChain it would sync the first time and then fail the next time - I'd go back and check and it would have deleted the @yourdomain.com portion from the username. So here's the solution that worked for me:

1) Turn off Keychain

2) Delete the exchange account.

3) Set up the exchange account again BUT - ENTER THE WRONG PASSWORD.

3a) Wrong password will cause it to fail and a new box will appear asking for username.

4) Fill in correct username and correct password.

5) re-enable Keychain.

This has solved the issue for me. I quit and re-opened Mail and it still works correctly and retained the correct username.

Please confirm if this works for you, worked for me!

Feb 25, 2016 5:54 PM in response to Mike the Computer Doctor

thank you so much. i was losing my mind.

lucasjb

Level 1

1 points

Mar 7, 2016 5:11 PM in response to the_red_skin

Taking a clue from this StackExchange article, you can change the username provided to Exchange by directly editing the file ~/Library/Mail/V2/MailData/Accounts.plist (make a backup copy first). Look for the <key>username</key> and edit the <string>myusername</string> beneath it to include the @domain.com part of your email address. No need to mess with iCould or Keychain or delete and recreate your account. Worked for me, hope that helps someone.

Sep 17, 2016 12:53 AM in response to the_red_skin

Nope, none of the above solutions work for me. Had this problem on Yosemite, upgraded to El Capitan before trying these solutions, then tried these but didn't work.

Same problem, the domain is stripped from the username field and the field is not editable.

Sep 17, 2016 6:45 AM in response to marul.stricat

L.E.: Ezun solution worked (I admit, I tried it after my previous post), now the username contain the domain too, but the mail stil doesn't work, I get an "account error"

Eric Root

Level 10

685,251 points

Sep 17, 2016 8:31 AM in response to marul.stricat

You might want to consider starting a new discussion. Since this one is a couple of years old, less people are likely to look at it. A new post would be much more visible. You can link to this one.

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Exchange & Mail: how to change username?