mail constantly goes offline

I am having the same exact problem! Also with iCloud and gmail... have to use my iphone for mail... my exchange mailboxes work fine

Just chiming win to say that I've been having this problem too... Mail works for awhile, then i get the "Connection failed" message on all of my accounts (macmail, gmail, one personal server).

Quitting and restarting mail generally solves the problem temporarily. Also, occasionally it will fix itself temporarily. Either way though... it always comes back.

Same problem and it is on a brand new iMac. The interesting thing is that I only have my iCloud account setup not the iMac. I have a couple of other pop accounts on my Macbook Pro and iPhone 6s and they have zero problems. I also have the iCloud account on the iPhone and it never has a problem, only the iMac and I get the same message that has been described here...."...“p06-imap.mail.me.com”..."

Clearly this is an Apple related problem. Fortunately the iCloud account is not used for anything significant, just to forward things back and forth to myself most of which takes place in dropbox anyway........

Scott

Same. New Macbook Air, El Capitan; I have an exchange account but the problem is identical, "connection failed, imap server timed out." My old laptop running Yosemite gets email on the same server, works fine. Genius Bar appointment yielded only a temporary fix. Apple has known about this problem for more than a year but no resolution, and no further responses to this thread? Annoyingly lame customer service. Will post if I find a fix, meanwhile $1500 after new purchases my 4 year-old laptop with an old operating system is running better than new with new. I'll have no trouble in the future remembering I don't necessarily need the newest Apple hardware and OS system.

Here too. Come on Apple, Mail is a MUST! What is the fix?

Just keeping it fresh. Still happening. Fairly routinely. And I'm obviously online since I'm posting this. Notice it's both iCloud and Google accounts. What's the deal, yo?

It is due to sudden drop in wi fi connection means wi fi is disconnected for few seconds & an exclamation mark is there on mail bar .

To resolve it : please go to system preferences click on network > advanced > TCP/IP > then click on renew DHCP lease ( dynamic host control protocol ) .by doing so server is refreshed .

Also , if any junk files are created on network we can remove them by method : click on go > finder > keep on holding option key > preferences > the first folder by host will be there .

Remove the contents of by host folder in trash > restart > empty the trash .

Also , if any junk files are created on network we can remove them by method : click on go > finder > keep on holding option key > preferences > the first folder by host will be there .

If you are going to continue to post, please post with the correct file path.

There is no Preferences folder directly under the "Go" dropdown - whether you press the Option key or not. You need to open the Library first. And, since the entries in that folder contain the UUUID tied to your machine/system, this should be the last folder to delete during troubleshooting.

Same same same; every day, multiple times a day. All of my accounts (iCloud, three Gmails, and a Yahoo) do this and it is incredibly frustrating. I'm missing time-sensitive emails because sometimes I don't notice that it's happened while I'm working on another desktop, and it's killing me.

I really hope there's a solution, otherwise I'm going to have to find a different mail program, which I'd prefer not to do as I'm so deep into the Apple ecosystem. But I rely on my email for work and this is just untenable...

Not to revive a somewhat dead thread, but I recently bought a brand new MBP Retina 13", and I was experiencing this same issue. I have an iCloud account, two Gmail accounts, and a university IMAP account set up in Mail, and all accounts would frequently lose connection throughout the day. Connection Doctor didn't provide any useful information, and I tried many of the suggestions found in this thread and others with no success. I was also getting random "timeout" messages from iTunes throughout the day (an issue I've seen others complain about in other help threads) when I wasn't actually doing anything in the app (it's just open in the background). Because of this, I figured that maybe it had something to do with the wireless adapter, and since the laptop is brand new, the most obvious explanation seemed to be a manufacturer defect. (As a side note, the mid-2011 MBP 13" that I upgraded from NEVER had this issue and was running the same version of OS X El Capitan, which made it seem more likely that it was a hardware issue).

Really not wanting to have to go into the Apple Store and hope that my computer would reproduce the error to allow the technicians to troubleshoot it (it happens so erratically that I figured with my luck Mail would work perfectly at the Genius Bar...), I decided to try one last thing that everyone talks about when hardware seems to be acting up: resetting the PRAM/NVRAM. I'm pretty sure other threads about Mail issues have mentioned trying this and not seeing any results, which is why I put it off for so long. Well, I think it might have worked. I'm now a full 24 hours with no Mail disconnects or iTunes "timeout" messages. I know that this was a lot of info to get to the solution, but I thought it might help some people in the future who are searching Google for solutions to this very specific, very odd error.

TL;DR It might not work for everyone, but try resetting the PRAM/NVRAM. So far (24-hours in) it's working for me.

Hi all, has anyone else figured this out since all the small El Capitan updates ? I'm still having this issue running the latest operating system on a 2015 13" retina MBP, Mail, and only 1 iCloud inbox. All settings within Mail are correct and my internet connection is fine. The only way I can make mail go online again (getting rid of the exclamation point symbols near "inbox") is by turning off WI-FI and turning it back on again, which isn't a deal breaker, but it's just annoying.

I've been meaning to return to this thread to provide an update on my last reply about resetting the NVRAM. In short, the solution didn't stick, and I'm back to the intermittent disconnects and "timeout" messages I was getting before 😟 Really frustrating because there doesn't seem to be any logic to these disconnects. Some days (like today in particular) are worse than others. And like you, adevkota, the quickest solution is to just turn wifi off and back on again. Sometimes, however, I'll get another disconnect within minutes of resetting the wifi. I also have a brand new 2015 13" MBP retina with all the latest updates to El Capitan. My best guess is there's some kind of a bug in the wifi card's firmware that is causing it to not play nicely with Mail and some other apps (I'm still getting timeout messages from iTunes). It just seems like it has to be a hardware issue because my MBP 2011 was working just fine with Mail.

At this point, I'm resigning myself to waiting until Sierra is released and perhaps that will solve all of our problems (fingers crossed).

Yeah, I've basically decided I'll just wait until Sierra comes out and hope the bug has been eradicated. I've tried everything.

Heres to hoping!

I've been having this problem for the past couple of months. I don't know why it started, but my IMAP accounts will suddenly go "deaf" and refuse to respond. I have found that a restart will clear up the problem, and since I leave my MacBook Air on all of the time it's probably for the best, but it's frustrating. Hoping Sierra will clean this up.

As Benlee said the PRAM reset is not effective. I've had this issue for over a year now... I would say it started in March '15. Others in my office have had the same problem and it's making a work environment difficult as our email problems are disruptive to our work day.

For me personally the problem went away from August '15 until just last week while it persisted for others in my office off and on. I've reinstalled the OS, gotten new routers at work, switched to using the Airport Extreme, rebuilt all of my mailboxes - none of it has helped my coworkers. Now each of us are experiencing the issue.

Could it be how the wireless card works with some ISPs? We have Time Warner Cable at my office. I haven't noticed the problem outside of work, neither have my 2 other coworkers, but to be fair I don't spend the same amount of time on my MBP outside of work. I don't usually experience the problem until after the 3rd hour of work or so.