iCloud IMAP account suddenly stops working on Mail application
I have used the standard Apple "Mail" application for years. I am running Snow Leopard OS X 10.6.8. I have not made any changes to the email settings in years. Today, when I turned on my Macbook and opened Mail, I received a pop up message stating:
"The icloud.com IMAP server "imap.mail.me.com" rejected the password for user UserName1. Enter your password again or cancel."
Reentering my password did nothing and the account was unable to be brought online.
The icloud email account is working fine on my iphone and ipad and in any internet browser.
The settings I had for the icloud email address in Mail on the macbook are as follows (no, my password is not "password"):
Email Address: sample_alias_email@icloud.com
Incoming Mail Server: imap.mail.me.com
User Name: UserName1
Password: password
Outgoing Mail Server: smtp.mail.me.com
User default ports
Use SSL
Authentication: Password
User Name: UserName1
Password: password
I found the following Apple help article that provided set up instructions for icloud mail on Snow Leopard:
iCloud: Configuring Mail with Mac OS X v10.6 or iOS 4 - Apple Support
This provides different settings than what I had in Mail, so, even though those have worked for me since I initially entered them, I changed the settings to match the document. The new settings became:
Email Address: sample_alias_email@icloud.com
Incoming Mail Server: mail.me.com
User Name: UserName1
Password: password
Outgoing Mail Server: mail.me.com
User default ports
Use SSL
Authentication: Password
User Name: UserName1
Password: password
The same error message continued to appear. The other angle I looked at was what exactly I should be using for the Email Address and User Name fields. As noted above, my initial setup used the email "sample_alias_email@icloud.com," which is an alias for my icloud account. I also have the "true" icloud account, "UserName1@icloud.com" and "UserName1@me.com." The "UserName1" portion of the address is what had been in the User Name fields in Mail.
I tried "UserName1" and "sample_alias_email" in the User Name fields in every conceivable combination. Nothing changed. I tried adding a new account and using "sample_alias_email@icloud.com," "UserName1@icloud.com" and "UserName1@me.com" as the email address. With the first two options, the @icloud.com addresses, the following message appeared when I filled in the 3 fields (Full Name, Email Address, Password) and clicked Continue:
The icloud.com IMAP server “Automatically added for iOS & OS X Mail” is not responding. Try checking the network connection, and that the server name is correct. Otherwise, the server might be temporarily unavailable. If you continue, you might not be able to receive messages.
It did not matter what I entered for a password with those two email addresses; I entered the actual password, random characters, nothing, the message was always the same. It appears that because the server is unavailable (supposedly), it's not even able to check the password.
The "UserName1@me.com" address gave me a different message:
Logging in to the MobileMe IMAP server “mail.me.com” failed. Make sure the user name and password you entered are correct, then click Continue. If the information isn’t correct, you cannot receive messages.
The text temporarily displayed immediately after clicking Continue shows that it is trying to verify my password, but it fails even though the password is correct.
I can successfully sign into icloud through a web browser with "UserName1@icloud.com" and "UserName1@me.com," but not with the alias address, which makes sense.
So, it appears something changed overnight, but I don't know what. I can send and receive email with the icloud account set up on my iphone and ipad, so it makes me think something changed with the server that did not affect the set up on those devices but did on my old version of OS X and Mail. It seems impossible that my account could have been hacked and my password changed, as everything is still working on the iphone and ipad with my password.
Any suggestions?
Thanks,
Matt
