Q: Mail not working with El Capitan

The problems with mail are bizarre and erratic - good for one minute, maybe ten, maybe 30, then dead.  Same thing over and over. Some tricks will fix the problem one time, then not the other. 

Hey, you know what this reminds me of?  Microsoft products.  You know, the reason you moved to Apple OS.  I was afraid the day would come when you could no longer say, 'because it just works!'   El Capitan does not work.  Apple has to get it together, this is the most appalling update ever released.

DO NOT UPDATE TO EL CAPITAN....you have been warned.

I have to say El Capitan and Mail work just fine... I have been running mine for 3 or 4 weeks now. 

I totally agree.  Apple should be ashamed of themselves.  El Crapitan is exactly that - CRAP.  I have had SOOOO many problems...

unchecking automatically check, saving, closing macmail, coming back in, checking it again and closing it again and coming back in does solve one of the the problems where the body of the mail does not show.

I also had an awful time with attachments to a mail.  Macmail would just lock up.  the only solution was to force quit.  I finally just sent the e-mail without the attachment

And on and on.....

Seriously Apple?

Day 32 without access to my professional emails on my iMac.

Despite the many various and welcome solutions offered within these forums, for which many thanks. None has been able to resolve my on-going inability to directly receive mail from the email web server.

All worked perfectly well before El Capitan. Mail continues to work brilliantly on Apple based mobile devices using iOS 9.

When can we expect a resolution to the on-going El Capitan problems?

I am aware of some creative industries turning their backs on Apple and returning to Microsoft because, in their opinion, Apple are failing them by issuing software that is volatile and inconsistent.

El Capitan is a public relations disaster for Apple.

Hi All. Just found this thread - I've not had any problem with my email accounts since El Capitan arrived, but every time I press reply the font I use is set on bold, and won't revert to regular unless I select all, change fonts completely and then go back to the one I like. This started happening the moment El C arrived, and I have triple checked to make sure that my settings are correct. Any ideas?

jroza1

You are totally correct, mail is working fine on my macbook, but on my iMac only my wife's mac account works on here side. If I flip to my side it's the mess everybody is talking about. No mail accounts, mac passwords not working in system preferences. Call yourself lucky.

Well not sure if this is a permanent solution - and I have no idea why I tried it or why it seems to have worked.

System Preferences-> Network and delete the network connection(s) you use to connect to the internet. I had both an ethernet and wifi connection, although the wifi was disabled and I was using ethernet.

Shut the Mac down, then retstart and set up the network connection again. I'm using Wifi now, and the connection now is faster than it was with ethernet before I even upgraded to El Capitan

It's been working flawlessly for at least 7 hours - much longer than any of the other "fixes" I've tried

Good luck everyone!

I had the same issue, but here's what I found worked to fix my issue:

1) Open mail

2) Select preferences

3) Click on the accounts icon

4) Select the advanced tab

5) Uncheck the automatically detect and maintain account settings box

I did this and I now receive mail, hope this helps

I have to agree with ac29011! I did the same thing by accident.

I was deleting and adding email accounts via the Mail Preferences and was still having the erratic problems. I accidentally hit "Accounts..." which opened the System Preferences, Internet Accounts pane. I added the email accounts via this window and have had no problems! It seems the culprit might be the Mail app specifically. I'm by no means an expert but have used macs since the Apple IIc days.

So back up your emails, delete the accounts and add back using the System Preferences, Internet Accounts pane.

PS - I also switch from POP to IMAP accounts which may also have something to do with it.

Hope this helps someone.

Well that was not successful after all.

But I think I'm on to something.

Mail dropped the connections to my Rogers (Yahoo) mail accounts but remembered/kept my gmail accounts. 

It's a simple fix for the Yahoo accounts - but annoying - I just have to go back into the server definition and add back Password as authentication method, re-enter the e-mail address and password. That keeps me connected for an unpredictable length of time.

Wow, looking at this support thread I felt like I was deja vu Microsoft Windows!   Couldn't connect to any of my POP accounts.   I unchecked "Automatically detect and maintain account settings"  on the "Advanced"  tab of Accounts in Preferences and all is good now. 

It helped. Keep fingers crossed.

We have 4 computers in our office that have upgraded to 10.11.1 and every one of them are no longer able to receive email.  That's a 100% fail rate.  I know they test this stuff, but this is ridiculous.  We are getting authentication errors on incoming email through our POP server, however everything works fine with webmail, iPhones and iPads.  Our outgoing service also works fine with the same credentials that work everywhere except in El Capitan Apple Mail.  This a big problem.  Is there a workaround to get Mail to download our mail?

Worked for me!

Mail has been working fine for me since I upgraded to El Capitan a month ago but a day or two ago became erratic and now doesn't work at all, but only for my accounts with GoDaddy.  Mail still works fine with other accounts on SiteGround.  There's absolutely nothing wrong with any of these accounts on my iPad.  What mess!

Upgrading to El Capitan was also a real mess and took an hour on the phone with Apple to get my Mac to reboot.