Q: El Capitan Mail send error

Dave - A new twist. I kept Mail and Preferences open ever since this afternoon, then tonight an email I sent in an account that had been working didn't go. I checked and it showed the SMTP as offline.  I looked at the parameters, nothing had changed so just for laughs, I checked on the Use SSL box, and suddenly the word offline went away and the email went.  But a few minutes later, it showed SMTP as offline again, I unchecked the SSL box and the offline disappeared. So that's where things stand at the moment. Your explanation made perfect sense to me, but obviously there's also something else happening. 

From what you said before, it sounds as if my simply deleting the account and then creating it again won't work, and I'd rather not chance that anyway.  But obviously a lot of people are having this problem, so I hope that Apple will come out with a fix already.  If, as you say, they knew about this from the beta, then they shouldn't have released El Capitan until it was fixed. 

Thanks!!!!

From what you said before, it sounds as if my simply deleting the account and then creating it again won't work, and I'd rather not chance that anyway.

Yes, don't flail around. Just put up with the irritation for a while. There's a 10.11.1 in the works—we'll see if that fixes this.

But obviously a lot of people are having this problem, so I hope that Apple will come out with a fix already.  If, as you say, they knew about this from the beta, then they shouldn't have released El Capitan until it was fixed.

Well, when you have a few million lines of code to deal with and not a lot but only a few people (as in less than, I dunno, 10,000) are having problems then you prioritize . . .

That said, it is a gross mistake to let one of the two most fundamental parts of email get messed-up in the quest for ever-more convenience. If you can't send an email, then it's not very useful is it?

Dave

I received this error also.  Never had the beta for El Capitan however.  After upgrade from Yosemite to El Capitan, I received this message after trying to send my first message in Mail:  "This message could not be sent because your account does not have a preferred outgoing mail server. Select an outgoing mail server from the list below."

I found that in Mail > Preferences > Accounts, Outgoing Mail Server (SMTP) was set to none.  I selected that option, picked Edit SMTP Server List.  That list was blank.  I added smtp.mail.me.com, Port 587, Use SSL on, and set Authentication to Password.  See the instructions on iCloud: Mail server settings for email clients - Apple Support.

After selecting this new server as the outgoing mail server, the El Capitan Mail app worked again.  I also closed the app completely, closed preferences, brought everything back an it still worked (others in this thread mentioned changes are lost).  Have not tried reboot yet to see if the setting sticks.

My iCloud account tries to use my AOL account outgoing server and not apples  Can not find how to change this as no other server pops up

Hi Pacmania.  Are you able to send email with that server from other accounts, so the "sent" name is tied to those accounts, rather than the iCloud or me.com accounts/addresses?  That's my big question for now, since I need to send emails out showing other email addresses/accounts, not iCloud or me addresses.  Thanks!!

Larry, I have not tried accounts other than the @me.com, so unclear if another domain works.  It authenticates with the iCloud account login, but sends/receives from an @me.com domain.

Works for me!!!! Thanks a lot...

I opened Settings app on El Captain, hit the iCloud icon, deactive mail for few seconds, and reactivate it.

Then, went back to mail app and chose the right smtp for my mail account. Don't forget to apply your change by cliking on other mail on the left...

I can send mail now...

Same problem here.

After updating the Mac at work I also experienced the outgoing email problem. Checked Preferences and found SMTP server settings removed for all accounts. Tried re-entering them but it would not save in Preferences. I finally got outgoing mail working by sending an email to myself, when the failed to send dialog window popped up I chose Edit SMTP Server List, entered necessary info and saved them that way. Did this with each account and seemed to work. I am staying away from Mail Preferences until they come up with a fix.

WE have 3 macs and all had this problem when trying to send outgoing email on mail after upgrading.

Problem solved on each by removing the iCloud.com email account in preferences and setting up again.

Solved the problem.

Well same issue over here, tried to rebuild mail, log out of iCloud, disable the SSL but nothing helps. I have a third party ISP for mail and don't use iCloud for mail. Hope someone can help us out??????

Since the El Capitan upgrade, I have been having the same problems with Mail (which IMHO has always been really buggy, but I digress...)

My problems are with sending from non-iCloud accounts - Mail keeps forgetting the outgoing mail server settings for two IMAP accounts after I have quit, so that I can't send e-mails, and either get a dialogue box popping up, or the mails just sit in the Outbox with no error messages....

The fix is relatively easy, just frustrating...

Open Preferences

Select Accounts, and the relevant IMAP account

Outgoing Mail Server may be blank, or it may have the correct domain in it, but click on it anyway, and select 'Edit SMTP Server List..."

Click Advanced

Untick the "Automatically detect and maintain account settings flag" so it is blank

Click Authentication, which may say none, and select "password"

Enter user name (in my case the e-mail address)

Enter the password again (I have taken to having them written on a post-it, this is happening so often)

Click OK

It all works again now, but Mail will forget this as soon as I quit (which I sometimes have to do because of other buggy behaviour).

Hope this helps someone, and here's hoping for a proper fix at some point.

p.s. iCloud also seems to have been a bit flakey since the upgrade too, but I haven't tracked that behaviour down just yet.

I've solved mine too! The server needs authentication, so you have to change the settings in the account, to password control and than fill in the username pass word for your own email account.

I wish you and Til2D better luck than I've had.  My system seems to take any random combination of parameters, such as Password or No Password, Use SSSL or don't use SSL, etc.  and then sometimes the Offline goes away for the SMTP server, mail in the outbox goes, and then at some point late, ranging from seconds to hours, the thing shows Offline again.  Nothing consistent, just totally aggravating and a time waster.  And I keep Mail and the Preferences window open at all times, 24x7.  I'm now truly stumped, since things that seemed to work suddenly don't.  I guess I'll just live with this until 10.11.1 comes out, and hope that they've fixed this in that release.  OR I can send emails from my iPhone, where this all works fine, only it takes me much longer to send from there, since my fingers weren't made to type on such as small keyboard as the one on the iPhone.

It would be great if Apple would have one person whose job it was was to solely reply to these discussion boards, keep us aware of whether they knew of our problems and were working on them or not, but I guess having that job would be cruel and unusual punishment.