macOS Sierra - Apple Mail - can't access Gmail

Gmail works great in Sierra Mail.The problem is in YOUR settings/preferences not in Mail's ability to work with Gmail.

In Mail, remove the Gmail account. this will take you to System Preferences > Internet Accounts where you select to remove Google. Don't just disable...remove it.

When you add your account back in System Preferences > Internet Accounts, it will ask to enter your email and password. If you have two step authentication on your Gmail account, you will see a window like this:

Enter the code.

Open Mail and check under Window in the Menu bar > Connection Doctor.

Do you see green for both incoming and outgoing options for Gmail?

If you still have problems, we'll need to further checking on your files and settings.

I now have an "All Mail (Google)" folder in my Mail application with over 3,000 Emails. I'm wondering if those are now all being uploaded to my system, or if this is somehow a link to to the Gmail server. It's like Gmail never removed any of my old Emails at all.

Log into your Gmail account in Safari or your preferred browser.

Under Settings, click on Labels.

Uncheck “All Mail"

[Note: if you want to clean up All Mail messages it's easier to do in Mail than in your browser. Select a message and add it to VIPs. This will show all the messages from that sender. Select all and delete. Empty the trash and do the next message,]

Now to why you have all that old mail in the All Mail folder....

In Gmail, Trash and Delete are not the same thing to Google.

Deleting a message will not delete the message. It simply moves it from Inbox to All Mail. To really delete, you have to move the message to the Trash.

Mail should now be set to move your messages to Trash. Test by deleting a message and verify in Safari that it actually ended up in Trash. If not, you will need to tweak your Server settings in Mail.

You might want to simply delete all the older messages in All Mail to clean up. Otherwise, see the Note above for cleaning up in Mail.

This worked for me. Thanks a million! There was a little triangle on the top right of the Mail window saying that Google mail was offline or something to that effect. I just clicked on it and everything went online. I didn't even have to put in my password.

Hi dianeoforegon

I did this to try and fix the problem in my computer MacBook Pro (Sierra 10.12.3) and I added my gmail account back again with no problem but now mail does not open gmail and seems to be glitching every time i open iCloud preferences as well.

I must have deleted the wrong files in my library..

Would you know how to rectify the situation? I fear that ill have to restore my whole computer

Deleting files in Mail should not have cause System Preferences > iCloud to "glitch".

What version os macOS? Look under the Apple in the Menu bar.

Download EtreCheck. (a utility by a respected member of this community) and post its report here, so we have a better idea of your hardware and software setup so we can better help.

http://www.etresoft.com/etrecheck

Sorry to come into this discussion so late, but I've just upgraded to Sierra and couldn't get into my Gmail accounts.

Here's what I did.

Re-install Google mail by turning off Avast

Click on your Avast app. - ‘Open Avast’

Go to Avast ‘Preferences’

Under Shields, go to Mail Shield. Click ‘Disable’

Now, go back to your Mail account - Preferences

Add account - Google.

You should be able to add your Google account name and password and your Google account should reappear in your Mailbox listings.

I then went back into my Avast and re-enabled Mail Shield by clicking on the ‘Enable’ button.

(April, 2017, having just upgraded to Mac OS Sierra)

on June 22. 2017 my mid-2010 MBP 6,1 (17" with 8 GB DDR3-1066 RAM) running OS-X Sierra 10.12.5 updated the remote desktop client. I don't use this feature at all, but it apparently was one of those automatic updates from the App Store. Ever since the update I lost my keychain passwords and iSight functionality. After having those issues fixed or worked around, I now face the issue of my Gmail account not wanting to log-in. I re-enter my password through the Utillities->Internet accounts page of the system settings, yet I only get a gray window after entering the password. Somehow it won't sign me in, even after making sure I used the correct information. I am wondering wat to do now? Should I fully remove the account and then redefine it?

Had the same issue the other day where I opened Mail and got a message that Gmail was unable to log in. This is what worked for me:

1. Open Mail, than go to Window> Connection Doctor to see if there are any login issues.

2. If there are, quit Mail when connection doctor is done.

3. Go to System Preferences> Internet Accounts.

4. Delete Gmail account, than re-add Gmail account.

5. Open Mail> Window> Connection doctor. If there are no longer login issues, than issue should be fixed.

very frustrating. changed my gmail account password on another device and now i cant get email in my mail account on my mac book pro because it's impossible to find the place to enter the new password. over the top ridiculous. boo apple programmer! i hope this lands where it should. maybe mac book pros are obsolete.

I just upgraded to macOS Sierra from Mac OS X Yosemite. I was disappointed to discover that my Apple Mail does not play at all with Gmail any longer. I followed the above steps to no avail. I tried it both with a POP account as well as with an IMAP account and Gmail still refuses to allow me to sign in to my Gmail account via Apple Mail with my Google password.

I can send mail via Gmail but I cannot receive mail unless I go to Google and toggle "Allow less secure apps" to ON. This seems to be an unsatisfactory solution. In Mail's "Mail Connection Doctor" the connection status of Gmail's SMTP is green (successful), however, either POP or IMAP both show red (failure).

Regrettably, I am seriously contemplating switching from Apple Mail to another Email client. It has served me well, but over the years there have been no real upgrades to speak of, and this problem with Gmail is kind of the clincher for me. I'm surprised that Apple has essentially let their Mail app rot on the vine, so to speak. Perhaps they plan on ditching Mail altogether, just like they did with optical drives, (which I think was a poor decision).

I'm willing to give Apple Mail one more try if you have a solution that really does work that will allow me to access my Gmail account without limiting security and/or functionality.

Thanks a heap for any assistance you can provide.

Thanks DianeOfOregon,

That seems to have worked, ... sort of. I mean it works, but Gmail is somehow different than how it used to work in Yosemite's Mail. I now have an "All Mail (Google)" folder in my Mail application with over 3,000 Emails. I'm wondering if those are now all being uploaded to my system, or if this is somehow a link to to the Gmail server. It's like Gmail never removed any of my old Emails at all. I'll have to figure this out because I definitely don't want thousands of old unnecessary Emails clogging up my system. Nevertheless, I now have Gmail with green dots in the Mail Connection Doctor!

What my problem was were MY settings as you had indicated. In Yosemite I had my Gmail account set up as a regular Email POP account and it had the blue "@" icon in front of it like all my other Email accounts. Now my Gmail account in Sierra has the colorful Google "G" icon in front of it. When I was following your instructions previously I was simply creating a new Gmail account by creating a new Email account (with the blue "@" icon) and labeling it "Gmail", vice using the already provided Google feature (with the colorful Google "G" icon) in System Preferences > Internet Accounts. Previously this "G" feature was listed as "inactive" so I just left it alone figuring it was for other apps like Google Earth, or Google Drive, or something. Since I really don't use these features, and since it was at the bottom of the list and inactive, I just ignored it. I've had a Gmail account for many years and never had to really set it up differently as I've migrated to newer Mac OS versions. Thus, I figured upgrading to Sierra would be similar--boy was I wrong.

Thanks for your assistance. I'll see how things go this next week as I test out the new Sierra Mail. I'll definitely have to figure out those 3,000+ Gmails, and try to eliminate those. Also, I already am missing very much the "Not Junk Mail" and "Thumbs Up" buttons. It alters significantly the way I manage my Emails. Those two buttons were critical in how I categorized my Emails. And I used my "Inbox" for just personal Emails, now Sierra Mail is kind of forcing me to place all my Emails in my "Inbox". Doesn't look like there's anyway to get around this other than to get a 3rd party app like SpamSieve, which is a bit of overkill. And at $30 I'm figuring I might as well go ahead and get a new Email client that has such features built into the app natively.

Again, thanks for your help.

Regards,

El Guapizimo 😎

THANKS! This worked for me too but only to read my gmail account.

A 'phone call to Apple support for something else, to which I added the problem of not being able to send mail from my Gmail account showed I had several instances of gmail in my outgoing server list, and re-entering my password one of them unblocked.

Yep. No Gmail since upgrade. Sad, very sad.

Remove the Gmail account in Mail by clicking on the "-" sign in Account.

This will take you to System Preferences > Internet Accounts

Remove Gmail in Internet Account. (not just uncheck Mail but remove the account)

With Mail quit....

• Go to the User's Library folder. (see below)
• Scroll to Containers
• Delete the com.apple.mail folder
• Scroll to Mail folder

Inside the V4 folder you'll find several folders with names like this:

Open each folder and find the folder that contains your Gmail account. Delete the entire folder.

• Open Keychain Access in Applications/Utilities.
• Find your Gmail account. There could be more than one entry.
• Delete all entries.

• Log out under the Apple in the Menu bar.
• Log in
• Open System Preferences > Internet Accounts, Add the Gmail account. If you have two step authentication enabled you'll need an app specific password. https://www.google.com/landing/2step/
• Open Mail
• Under Window in the Menu bar, open Connection Doctor. Do you see green icons for Gmail account?

Show User's Library

The User's Library folder is hidden by default. To unhide: Select the Finder in the Dock. Under Go in the Menu bar > hold down the Option key and you’ll see the Library.

Finding the User Library Folder

http://www.takecontrolbooks.com/resources/0167/site/chap11.html#FindingtheUserLi braryFolder

Holy $hit. I have five Gmail accounts. I did not sign up for this.