mail says "this account already exists" but it's nowhere to find

Out of curiosity, is the email account you're trying to add also the same email address for your Apple ID? I just had the same issue. I had to completely logout of iCloud on the Mac (by going through the "Internet Accounts" preference pane of Settings) before I could add the email account that "already existed". I was able to add the account then, but I wasn't able to log back in to iCloud after that (it said it was already logged in even though no iCloud account showed up on in the preference pane). I then had to leave the "Internet Accounts" preference pane and click on the iCloud preference pane in Settings. Sure enough I was still logged into my iCloud account there. I just had to click on all the programs that I wanted to use iCloud. Everything worked fine after that.

Thank you for this. However, my fix was a bit more simple. When I went to my "Internet Accounts" preference pane in settings I noticed that Google was one of the options. When I selected that I could see that "mail" was not checked. After checking that box and opening up mail everything was there. I did not need to log out of iCloud. This all happened after putting a new SSD into my late 2011 Macbook Pro and adding a clean install of iOS on the SSD and transferring apps from my old hard drive.

FYI none of the suggestions in this thread worked for me.

My issue turned out to be related to previous SMTP server login details not being cleaned up correctly.

See the following thread for details:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7266288?start=0&tstart=0

Hope this helps.

Thanks for the advice. I tried it and didn't have the same success others have had, perhaps I needed to log out after deactivating the iCloud account, I don't know. These types of problems really bug me. However, your thought helped me resolve the problem in another way. I had the same problem with my email address = apple ID. We're with Comcast and so I chose to create another Comcast email account, a dummy account if you will with a different email address, username etc. I then went back into the Mac and it was happy to set up this account for me using the standard automated process. I then went into that account and edited the fields such that it matched how things should look for the account I wanted to set up in the first place but wasn't able to because of the error message "this account already exists". All the fields were editable and no complaints from the OS were generated. I then went back into Comcast and deleted the dummy account. All seems to be well (fingers crossed).

nomadic yeti wrote:

.. is the email account you're trying to add also the same email address for your Apple ID? I just had the same issue. I had to completely logout of iCloud on the Mac (by going through the "Internet Accounts" preference pane of Settings) before I could add the email account that "already existed". I was able to add the account then, but I wasn't able to log back in to iCloud after that (it said it was already logged in even though no iCloud account showed up on in the preference pane). I then had to leave the "Internet Accounts" preference pane and click on the iCloud preference pane in Settings. Sure enough I was still logged into my iCloud account there. I just had to click on all the programs that I wanted to use iCloud. Everything worked fine after that.

Thanks @nomadic yeti, that worked for me with an Internode IMAP email account, that failed to log in when I upgraded to El Capitan. I would repeatedly enter the password to no avail. So I deleted the mail account and tried to set it up from new, couldn't do this as I was getting "This account already exists" lies. And yes, that email address is my iCloud/Apple ID email.

I was able to log back in to iCloud in the Internet Accounts pane however, unlike you. So for me the whole process was:

1) quit Mail app

2) System Preferences > Internet Accounts > select iCloud account “-“ key to delete account. (say yes to all the warnings)

3) start Mail app, Preferences > Accounts > “+” button

4) enter email account info, account gets created in Mail. Quit Mail app

5) System Preferences > Internet Accounts > “+” to add your iCloud account (tick boxes for which services you wish to have synced).

You don't have to delete anything, you can but you don't have to. There is a better solution.

1) Quit Mail app.

2) Go to System Preferences > Internet Accounts.

3) You should see your iCloud account to the left. Under that you should see all your other email account(s) listed as "inactive". Click the one you want to activate (it'll prompt you for your password) then to your right there are check boxes. Check all that you want applied, particularly the check box for "mail."

4) Enjoy. It would not allow you to add your email account, because it was already there (hence the message saying "account already exists.") It was merely "Inactive" and needed to be reactivated.

Thanks for this thread. I just did a clean install and had the same exact issue. Until this thread, I have not been able to find anything about this issue. I too use the same email address for my Apple ID. Logging out of Icloud to set up the email account did the trick and then I was able to lock back into Icloud with no problem. The question I want to throw out there (and I know this thread is about a month and a half old) is this: I now have my email account set up and as I stated I "relogged" into Icloud account through settings/Icloud. When I look at the preference pain/accounts tab in Mac Mail, I still see an "inactive" Icloud account for the Apple ID email. I have not encountered this before. I have another machine running El Capitan and I did not have this issue nor do I see an "inactive" Icloud email address in Mac Mail preferences. What's that doing there? Not a huge deal but just wondering. Thanks.

Thank you , I had the same issue after the video card was swapped by the service center. Upon checking, I kept getting the message that my email ID used in the iCloud registration was incorrect. I also use this email in my mail account. Followed the steps as recommended and everything is back to normal

Hi,

I had a similar problem. Thought I'd post my solution in case anyone else finds it useful. My Apple ID is also the email I couldn't get working. I kept trying to add it as a separate account, but obviously it was coming up as already existing coz it was under my iCloud account. This worked for me:

Mail > Preferences > iCloud

Under Outgoing Mail Server (SMTP) I selected Edit SMTP Server List and put in my email password (which is different to my Apple ID password) in Password (under the Advanced tab).

This worked for me as well, although the dire warnings about logging out of your iCloud account were scary. But it worked and my mail ( and iCloud account) are back up and working well. FYI: this all started when I changed my password on my email account. I went into Mail Preferences and changed the password for the pop and smtp server and it all worked just fine ... for about an hour, then it didn't work. When I deleted the account to reset, ran into the problems described (and solved) here. All this indicates there is some bug still to be resolved in El Capitan.

When I went to 'Internet Accounts' I found and deleted one called 'Inactive' which was where my 'Yahoo' account should have been listed. I was then able to add the Yahoo account under 'Internet Accounts'. I closed 'Mail": I had to 'Force Quit' (Opt Cmd Esc) as Cmd clicking the Dock Mail' icon failed. When I reopened 'Mail' it fetched my eMail.

Another user happy to have found this solution. The iCloud dialogue warnings when logging off appear very end-of-the-world "This will delete all iCloud data on your computer etc...". However, all such data is recovered as soon as you reconnect to iCloud, which is the purpose of iCloud after all.

+1 for the pain this issue causes.

Thanks for the tip about removing iCloud and then adding it again.

I had exactly the same issue. My email account (Sky) had been added before El Capitan upgrade and my email address used as my AppleID and, hence, iCloud ID.

Had to change my Sky password today (after Yahoo gave it away!!) and Mac Mail didn't seem to want to do it and my email authentication just failed. Thought I'd remove the account and just add it in again, then got the "account already exists" problem with iCloud.

The warnings when I tried to remove iCloud from internet accounts were somewhat daunting but I persisted. Added the email account successfully and then readded iCloud to Internet accounts.

All now seems to be well - until the next time !!

Hello, I have macos sierra and I have the same problem with hotmail account...

I tried every solution in this discussion and more that I could imagine... problem is not solved yet !

I tried to add another hotmail account and then to change the data in account settings, I deleted all data in keychain related to icloud account, i deleted all SMTP servers related to hotmail, reboot, force quit mail app....

Does anyone have some other idea?

Sorry no new ideas other than maybe it is something different causing it. I have OS Sierra and had the same problem, followed the steps and all is fine. Clearly this is not just an El Capitan problem. Perhaps an iCloud problem instead but certainly not one you'd expect to arise.