Changing Gmail password in Mail (El Capitan)

What just worked for me is the following:

In the Mail menu, click on Preferences…, then click on Accounts, then on the mail account whose password you want to change. On the right hand side, near the bottom, you will see the SMTP box. Click on the arrows icon at the right hand end of the box, and from the pop-up menu, choose the bottom item: Edit SMTP Server List…

Click on the Advanced tab; you will see a box for Authentication: It will probably say None. Click on the arrows icon in that box and choose Password. The contents of the Advanced tab will change and allow you to put in a password. Click the OK button, and you are done.

WHY has this been made so unobvious, difficult, and un-Apple-like to do? I'm really disappointed in Apple for this ridiculous method they now require to change a password in Mail.

I have two Gmail accounts and changed both passwords. There is no place in Mail or Internet Accounts to change it. I found one post that said we have to delete and re-add the account. I sure hope this isn't accurate.

There is no way to enter or change the password any more, in mail or in System Prefs, internet accounts. You can delete and reenter the account but the account keeps going inactive over and over. Nobody really knows what to do?

Yep, that's the brilliance of modern Apple Mail. You have to trigger it to tell you the password is incorrect, either by waiting for it to occur, sending an email, etc. Then when it asks you can change it. Other than deleting and re-creating, this is the only way I've found.

I haven't tried, but I expect there's one other option, and that's to not use the built in "GMail" mail type and set it up as a generic IMAP account pointing to the GMail IMAP and SMTP servers.

Thanks - this was driving me bananas! I could list any number of completely non-sensical and anti-intuitive inconsistencies throughout Apple's operating systems that they really should have got a handle on by now. Especially frustrating is the proper lack of integration between comms apps Mail, Contacts, Calendar, Notes and Tasks. As much as I hate to say it, Outlook beats it hands down in this respect. I think that Apple should send regular surveys to users to find out what improvements are actually needed, instead of tinkering around in the dark, trying to fix what ain't broken, and making baffling changes that users have to then find workarounds to fix.

Same problem here, three Gmail accounts and nowhere to change my passwords to my new ones ... am I missing something ?

Please see my post about this here… how to change the gmail password on Imac El Capitan

Hope this helps, Greg

thanks Greg, unfortunately, I run in a problem when trying your three steps solution.

1) Go to gmail.com and change it there first

> no problem here, that was done beforehand

2) System Preferences -> Internet Accounts -> Google -> change it there.

> maybe I lack sleep, but this is where I looked first, and I can't seem to find where to type in my new password.

3) Mail -> Preferences -> Accounts -> Gmail -> SMTP Server -> Edit SMTP Server List -> choose the Gmail SMTP server and change the password there too.

> no problem here either, I "can" change it alright. Yet, since I don't use Gmail for outgoing e-mails, it's good already.

if someone can give me pointers,

thx

Hi GregLD

In both System Preferences Internet Accounts and in Mail Preferences > Accounts you need to first select the Account Name in the Left hand column, (the name will turn blue) then you should see a Password Box under your Name or User Name, that just has a series of *********** in the field.

Highlight all of the ********** and then type in your Password. You won't see the letters.

In the Mail preferences this is all located in the "Account Information" tab at top of window.

Changing in either location should change both.

This should also get updated in Keychain Access, but it is here that I sometimes see issues. Not sure if it is related to iCloud keychain access or not. iCloud sync doesn't always behave.

Finally, some folks are finding if under the "Mailboxes" Menu in Mail, if they click on "Take all Accounts Offline" then wait a minute, then Turn All Accounts Online this helps. Seems to disconnect and then reconnect with the servers.

Let me know if any of the above works for you. Thanks.

Hope this helps, Greg

None of the above helped me; I was never prompted for a new password - there was no password box under by name, either. I had to use Mail Preferences-->Accounts-->Gmail-->Outgoing Mail Server (SMTP)-->Edit SMTP Server list-->Advanced to change it there, and it changed it for incoming messages as well. Seems extremely unintuitive but at least it worked.

thanks EcoGreg and bediddleby for your help.

Changing the password in the otherwise completely unused Google smtp settings, indeed did the trick.

Just to make it perfectly clear (in case anyone from apple see this) the last solution worked as a workaround, but there is still an underlying bug.

Namely, I don't use gmail in any of my outgoing parameters, and to "suppose" the smtp account is the same as the incoming account might be accurate in most cases, but not all cases (This is the very reason most mail clients have separate incoming and outgoing credentials fields).

In my case, making the assumption they are all and one same got me in troubles when upgrading to El Capitan (my email, incoming, and ongoing parameters are 3 separate adresses, by design) : It scrapped most of my settings and replaced under the assumption they were all the same one.

Here again, it seems mail doesn't care if it's an account for imap.google.com or smtp.google.com and slaps the same credentials to both, making change to one of them effectively (but wrongly) changing the other one.

Apple Mail is a good client with extensive parameters, don't over simplify it for people who really use it (in corporate environment for instance).

Thanks all,

Greg

I had the same problem, no place to enter a new password in latest El Capitan version 10.11.3.

The quickest fix for me was to go to accounts under Mail Preferences, highlight the account, delete the account by hitting the - (minus sign), and then just add a new email account by setting up Gmail as a Google account selection. It took a whole 2 minutes to get all my emails back in my inbox.

Much less time than the time it took me than the many forums I read through trying to figure out the solution.

I read your post at the URL you provided.

As others have said, the problem is that there is no password field. Under Mail -> Preferences, there is no password field under any of the following 3 tabs:

Account Information

Mailbox Behaviors

Advanced

And I see no email accounts in my Keychain Access window either....

Bingo!

I solved this issue for myself after experiencing all the missing password fields like everyone else.

Simplest solution:

Try to send an email using Apple Mail for the gmail account that you cannot change the password for. When you hit the send button, a popup box will come up while in Apple Mail, it will take you to a login box for that gmail account - you can enter your password there.

Everything was back to normal after doing this.

Darn Apple, oversimplified and not intuitive..!

Thanks for this, axio7. But there is a race condition in Apple Mail. In my case I saw my account go offline after I changed my Gmail password via my browser. So At that point I could not have even sent an email from the account as it had gone offline

I'm not sure what negotiation or hand shake occurs between the mail client and the server. But if you hit this "race condition" then you're out of luck. Otherwise, your suggestion is great.

I managed to solve the problem by deleting the account and recreating it. Others have suggested this. It works too.

Thanks again for your helpful tip.....