Mail app El Capitan - Gmail "Login Failed" error

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Level 2

229 points

Mail app El Capitan - Gmail "Login Failed" error

Hi, Since upgrading to El Capitan I am getting "Login Failed" error for my 2 Gmail accounts. I tried deleting the accounts and setting them up from new, still the errors. My other email accounts (non-Gmail) are connecting fine.

The Mail Connection Doctor says "Trying to login to this IMAP account failed. Verify that the username and password are correct." There is an equivalent error for it's SMTP account.

In Mail Settings, the Incoming Mail Server and User Name are greyed out (albeit containing the correct information), which I hadn't noticed with Yosemite Mail. The tick box to automatically detect and maintain account settings is ticked, and that option is greyed out; I cannot change it.

On rare occasions, the connection has been successful, and the emails download. This is sometimes after Mail has been sitting there open for a while. Then next time I start Mail, the errors are there again.

MacBook Pro (15-inch Mid 2012), OS X El Capitan (10.11.3), SSD, Optical Drive swapped for HD

Posted on Feb 21, 2016 9:49 PM

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Answer 1

Best reply

skyleaf17

Level 1

4 points

Jul 6, 2017 4:51 PM in response to JDfunky

I know this was posted some time ago now but thought I would throw the solution that worked for me up just incase anyone else has the same problem. I already had imap access enabled by the way, I've just thrown the extra step in there in case your issue is because it was disabled. For what ever reason disabling imap access and then re-enabling it seemed to fix the problem.

First of all login to your gmail account in your browser,

Go to settings and choose 'forwarding pop/imap',

Scroll down to 'imap access' - if it's disabled then enable it (if this was disabled than this is likely your problem as it should have been enabled so this should resolve your problem. However, for me I had to do the next step) -

if it's already enabled then disable it,

Now select 'save',

Now go back in to settings and enable 'imap access' again,

Go to your Mail.app and click the little icon beside the email account that wasn't connected. It should now connect to the sever and download your emails.

Hope this helps.

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Answer 2

Nubz N.

Community Moderator

Feb 23, 2016 7:29 AM in response to JDfunky

Hello there, JDfunky.

It seems you're having issues connecting to your Gmail accounts using Apple Mail, since upgrading to El Capitan. The following link from Google's support site offers up some great information in regard to settings for Apple Mail:

Set up Gmail with Outlook, Apple Mail, or other mail clients

https://support.google.com/mail/troubleshooter/1668960

You will need to select a few options to get to that information.

Choose:

I want to enable IMAP
Then "Apple Mail"
OK, Confirm my settings

Additionally there are some pointers on their site at this link as well:

Can’t sign in to my email app

https://support.google.com/mail/answer/14257

Thanks for reaching out to Apple Support Communities.

Kind Regards.

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Answer 3

JDfunky Author

Level 2

229 points

Feb 24, 2016 3:59 PM in response to Nubz N.

Thanks for your reply. I had already set it up as Google's instructions. The weird thing is that this is an intermittent issue. As I write this, Mail is working fine with Gmail. But yesterday it had the error all day.

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Answer 4

Feb 26, 2016 4:30 PM in response to JDfunky

I just posted a reply to notes password correct but rejected which is probably more appropriate here. I too have had a devil of a time with Mail.app logins in 10.11.x, even when trying to connect from Mail.app to Server on the very same machine. In short I signed up for the https://beta.apple.com/sp/betaprogram/ Mac Public Beta program and started sending problem reports to Apple (it sends huge files to Apple). Then suddenly things started working in late October or early November 2015.

For reasons I won't go in to here I put a fresh 10.11.3 on top of one of my 10.11.4 Beta's this morning and Mail.app broke all over again. Won't hardly log into anything.

Give 10.11.4 Beta a try. I'm guessing it will solve your problem.

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