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.

We tried this multiple times and it did not work, we finally took the tip to "fake out" the new account function, entering in wrong credentials and a screen popped up and asked us to manually enter the IMAP and SMTP addressses. We used the proper email credentials (that had been rejected multiple times) and this time it worked.

Note to COMCAST users, log into you Comcast account via comcast and clear out your inbox if you don't want it to dump your entire inbox onto MAC mail. You can just create a folder on comcast and move them or you could delete before setting up the email account.

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.

I had the same problem for the same issue, problem solved, Apple shame

Thank you . You're a life saver

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).

Thanks! That worked for me!

Thanks a lot and shame on Apple for ignoring this bunch of bugs for three or more months.

It took me many hours to struggle with mail and iCloud preferences and finally to find this hint.

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

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).

We shouldn't have to contend with these kind of workarounds. Fix it, Apple!

Thank you! Hours of aggravation solved in minutes.