not able to open mail from my mac, gmail repeatedly asking for password. but using same password able to open gmail on safari

Hello,

First off lets try this, if its the same as what i have had before then its a long one and not a fast fix.

Go to mail and then go to the top where it says mail>Quit Mail. Once mail is shut.

Go to apple symbol top left>system preferences when the window is open go to internet accounts click on the account you are having problems with and then click on the - symbol to the bottom of that column you are in. (If it asks you to sign in when you click on the account just cancel it.)

Once you have done that restart the mac then go to System preferences again and into internet accounts again and then click on the google link to the left of the window and add your account into the form that comes up. once this is done open up the mail app and see if it is all working.

can you take a photo of the message it asks?

Thanks, can i ask do you have apple care for this? if so would be worth giving them a call to see if they can talk you though what is needed to happen with this.

I had a problem that looks just like yours and i ended up having to wipe the computer and restore only my data to get the computer back up and running if you don't let me know and i will tell you what apple got me to do.

okay well they got me to take out some .plist files to see if that would help it didn't. I'm not sure what ones that they deleted for my self maybe someone here would be abel to tell you what ones to take out but didn't work the one that came close to working was this going into keychain and deleting the account(s) then reading them again.

if you are to do this please back up first with Time Machine. You can do this with a usb drive.

Okay so go back to where you had internet accounts and make sure mail is shut. click the - on the account your having problems with then quit system preferences.

Okay so then press cmd and space bar at the same time then type 'keychain access' into the search then click on 'keychain access'

once it is open go to the top of the window and put your email address that you are having problems with.

once you have put in your full email, have a look at what comes up i deleted things in the kind colome with 'internet password' and anything with under name that had smtp.gmail.com or imap.gmail.com so it would look like this, map.gmail.com - internet password.

right click and delete them. make sure not to touch any other files that dont say them things on them.

Once you have done this quit keychain access and then restart the computer, once the computer is restarted go back to system preferences and internet accounts and re-add the account.

Hope this helps. if something is not clear just ask.

If you've activated 2-step verification, you need to generate an application-specific password in your Google account and enter it instead of the login password you use on the website. You must change the password for both the incoming and the outgoing mail server.

Note that Linc's answer above would explain the issue with your Live account as well since both Google and Microsoft offer the 2-step verification option.

I only said that way as that is what happened after weeks of talking back to apple i had a problem with hotmail accounts and gmail accounts yahoo too. working one day the next not. nothing changed and didn't have 2-setp verification option on.

Mr Leo Sir wrote:

I only said that way as that is what happened after weeks of talking back to apple i had a problem with hotmail accounts and gmail accounts yahoo too. working one day the next not. nothing changed and didn't have 2-setp verification option on.

No problem -- I was just pointing out that if the OP susovan does have 2-step verification turned on for both the Gmail and the Live account then an app-specific password would need to be used for both in Mail even though the regular password works in Safari. That is a very common issue -- but as you have found there can be other explanations.

that is okay, i was just saying cos its kinda a big step to delete things and get into all of that.