Mail Server Offline

Are you using Apple Mail? If yes, under Window in the Menu bar select Connection Doctor.

You will see green to indicate a connection and red to show there is a problem. Except for iCloud account you'll see two entries for each account 1) receiving and 2 SMTP for sending.

If you see a red symbol for incoming, you need to enter the password again in the Account window.

If you see a red symbol for outgoing (smtp) you need to edit SMTP settings.

All email accounts have passwords. If you don't remember your password you will need to contact your provider to reset. Save the password!

Add password for incoming:

Open Mail Preferences > Accounts

Select account > click on the Account Information tab

Enter password under the server section.

Click out of the window to save settings.

Click back to select the account to select edit SMTP setting. Most likely you only need to add password for SMTP.

Add password for outgoing:

EDIT SMTP SETTINGS

In Accounts window > Outgoing Mail Server SMTP: select to Edit SMTP Server list... from popup.

Select account in the list.(It's not uncommon to find extra SMTP servers listed. When you remove account, Mail does not delete the smtp info. You might need to do some clean up in the list to remove the extras.)

Under Advanced Tab:

Apple defaults to the default ports (25,465, 587) but some servers prefer a custom port. Check to see what port they recommend. Gmail for example likes 465, Outlook.com 587.

Verify if your server require SSL.

User Name. Enter full email address eg. UserName@gmail.com

Add password if it is blank.(If you have two step authentication setup, you'll need to get an app specific password more info)

Open Connection Doctor under Window in the Menu bar.

Do you see green light now for your account SMTP?

Glad I could help. 🙂

A similar problem with me this morning. But I am suspicious it might be somehting to do with Host email server (BT Internet). The connection doctor has a constantly spinning wheel next to the IMAP and a red dot next to the one of the SMTPs. I have been in to the settings and suggested and re-enetered user names and password, nothing happened.

The other issue, which makes me wonder if it is a central host issue is that this morning when I went into my mail directly on-line not through the Mail, 2 weeks worth of email bizarrly had moved itself into deleted folder between in the time between two log-ins. The reason I had gone on-line for my mail is that all this mail had vanished from my Mac Mail- but it was visible in my on-line email account the first time, the second time, it was gone. The helpful assistant from BT helped me find that it has somehow all gone into the Deleted folder and when I asked how he thought it had happened, he basically said I must have done it. It seems too co-incidental that this morning I cant get my mail through Mail and I have also had this problem wiht disappearing emails.

So now I have all my mail on BT centrally but Mail cant access it. It has been working perfectly up till now!

If you can help would be very grateful.

It's not uncommon for providers like BT to have server issues. Most will admit to issues.

We need more info in order to help. If your account setup as POP or IMAP?

POP only accesses the Inbox. If the messages were moved to Deleted Items folder on the server, you would have to move them back to the Inbox in order for Mail to download.

In Connection Doctor, do you have green indicators for incoming and outgoing for your BT account?

If IMAP, how many messages in your Inbox? It's possible you would find better sync if you had only a few hundred messages or less in the Inbox. You can either move the messages to a folder you create under "On My Mac" to get them off the server or select the Archive icon in Mail's tool bar to move them to an Archive folder online.

Thank you very much.

I got exasperated and after getting very muddled with forum advice on re-setting Mac Mail altogther (which involved deleting a file through Finder, but that didn't appear to acheive anything; hopefully that isn't going to have any deleterious effects!), I simply removed the account by clicking the minus sign and then going through the wizard to re-install it- of course all that I needed to do was enter my email address and all the relevant settings were populated automatically and hey presto, email working perfectly with all those previously deleted emails on the host server (which I had moved by to the on-line Inbox) now back in my Mac.

But I just feel disurbed that out of the blue what was working perfectly can suddenly crash without clear reason. I am suspicious it was something to do with BT. Presumably the fact that the solution in the end turned out to be so simple points to the likely culprit?

Send & Receive issues are the hardest to troubleshoot because it involves so many individual issues. As you know even if you have all the right settings sometimes one part like the BT server can fail causing issues. Often when the problem resolves you never know exactly what fixed the issue. Just be thankful it's working.

It sounds like you have a POP account. I highly suggest you set up as IMAP. See this BT post for instructions.

http://bt.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/44917/~/bt-email%3A-what-are-the- settings-for-outgoing-and-incoming-mail-…

Appreciated, thanks.