Q: Mail not working with El Capitan

What exact issues are you experiencing within the Mail app, amcx2222?

I have Mail V.9. In it I use my iCloud account (@me.com) and two Earthlink accounts. Until about 15 minutes ago, I could use @me.com but not Earthlink. Now, I see that mail is arriving in my Earthlink accounts on my iMac and on the Earthlink website. However, anything between Sept 28 and today, Oct 1, has disappeared from the website, as well as from both my iMac with El Capitan and my MacBook with 10.7.4. One Earthlink account, which seems to be for NOTES. has an exclamation point in a triangle, meaning it does not work, but that is no problem. Thanks for your response, and if you have any information on how to make sure this problem is solved, I shall appreciate knowing it. Maryde

After upgrading to El Capitan my Mail inbox went from 166 messages to 5,000. The oldest message is about 5 months old. As I delete them they recycle back and show up again. Also, IMessage is not working either. I get an error that there is a problem with the authentication process. I did reset my ICloud password but still same issue.

Mail is critical hence my thoughts about going back to Yosemite.

Do you have any suggestions?

Are you using a POP or IMAP account within the Mail app?

Would you be able to post the exact error message you get when attempting to sign into iMessage on the Mac?

It sounds as if the missing emails in EarthLink is an issue not present with the recent El Capitan update. If the emails disappeared off both your Macs and the EarthLink website that means they were removed from the server and therefore removed from all devices accessing the email server. Have you checked the Trash on the EarthLink website specifically to see if any of the mail between Sept. 28 and Oct. 1 is there?

If the Mail is not appearing on EarthLink's website directly, there is not much that can be done to recover the mail that may have been delivered between Sept. 28 and Oct. 1 because if it's not on EarthLink's website then the two Macs have no where to retrieve those messages from unless they were stored on your Mac locally.

I am using 2 IMAPs and 2 POPs.When I could not make one of the POPs work, I added an account with the same name and it installed itself as an IMAP. Mail seems to be coming in on these two. I cannot tell if mail is coming in on another because it is my fax email. Mail that I was holding onto in my inbox, rather than in my named mailboxes, has disappeared.

As for the emails disappearing from Earthlink on the website, the mailbox indicates I have 606 emails in it, but only the first page has any, just three. All the other 60 pages are blank and yet they remain as pages. Also as for the disappearance from my MacBook, it is shared and responds in the same way as my iMac.

I have had enough for now and hope something puts itself right overnight. Thanks again. I shall watch for further comments on  this site.

maryde: I think you have a good philosophy. Give it a bit of time and make sure that it's still not pulling in mail after the update. Something to mention: when you perform an OS update upon completion the Mail app does have to go through some setup and pull mail back in so this could be what you're seeing.

If you continue to have trouble, and this site doesn't provide any new solutions by tomorrow, I'd recommend reaching out to AppleCare so they can have a look into it with you.

Contact AppleCare by Phone:

1-800-APL-CARE

Schedule a Call with AppleCare:

getsupport.apple.com

Best of luck!

IMAP

Hi bren_nan,

The error messages I get with IMessage are:

1) Could not sign into iMessage - Please check your network connection and try again.

2) An error occurred during authentication.

Thanks so much!

I'm having the same issue, except I can receive email but not send it.  I've tried troubleshooting using the tutorials, but nothing is working (and hopefully I haven't made my problem worse).  Had I known to read the reviews BEFORE updating, I would have kept Yosemite until the bugs were fixed in Cap.  That said, how can I get my email to work properly again?

P.S. I didn't use Time Machine so I can't revert back to my former software :-/

amcx2222:

I've attached an article below that pertains specifically to your iMessage activation issue. Please be sure to follow the steps exactly, and in order and see if you have any luck. The one I've found to be the culprit many times is the one you'd think is least important -- having the correct date/time/time zone set on your Mac.

Have a look and see if this helps resolve your issue!

If you get an error when trying to activate iMessage or FaceTime - Apple Support

Hi nic924,

If you wouldn't mind clarifying exactly what is occurring when you try and send email, as you state that's the issue you're having. If you could provide the exact error message you're receiving that'd be great.

Also, if you could go to the menu bar in mail, select Window, then Connection Doctor. Have a look and see if all your email accounts are appearing with green indicator dots or not. If they are not, please provide the error message appearing to the right of them.

Thanks!

In response to nic924, Have you used the Connection Doctor under the Window menu within Mail to confirm the SMTP server is configured correctly?

Mail freezes when I check the config

<Image Edited by Host to Removed Personal Information>

As soon as I boot it up, it shuts down with the window for reporting to Apple.  Total disaster.