mail account password rejected

Sounds like you need to reset your password. It's not uncommon for a password that is not secure is disabled by the provider requiring you to reset with a better password. Often does not come with any notice.

If you can log in your account in your browser, then the password is correct UNLESS you have setup two step authenticaition and it requires an app specific password.

To eliminate any issues on in Mac Mail, test in Guest User or create a new User to see if Mail works as expected.

CREATE A NEW USER

Go to System Preferences --> Create a New User in Users & Groups.

Switch to the New User by logging out under the Apple in the Menu Bar.

Log into the new User.

You can skip logging in with an Apple ID. Hit continue then skip.

Only Apple apps will be in the Dock.

Open Mail

Add your account.

If it works no need to let it download everything.

Note: if it's POP account be sure you set to "leave on server".

Quit Mail then log back into your regular User.

Open Mail

Remove the account. It will take you to System Preferences > Internet Accounts

Uncheck the account.

Go to your User's Library (see below)

Scroll down to Containers

Delete "com.apple.mail" folder

Log out under the Apple in the Menu bar

Log in

Open System Preferences > Internet Accounts and add account

Open Mail and see if it will connect.

There are other files that might need to be deleted, but let's try first with just Containers file.

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

No. It's not the mail app that is rejecting the password, it's the mail server. You don't specify who the email provider is, but Yahoo is notorious for their terrible mail servers. They seem to be constantly getting out of sync and you have no control over which of the hundreds of servers they have you actually hit with any given device at any given time.

It may help to try and fool the system a bit. If you are using an ISP that provides a single dynamic public IP address to you, see if you can release and renew the DHCP address on your router. The goal is to get a different IP address than what you have now (I'm talking about your PUBLIC IP address, not the IP address on your Mac).

You may be directed to a different server that isn't borked when you try to add it after that.

If you use a different email provider, contact them and report the problem. Web-mail and IMAP / POP3 servers are often not hosted on the same servers and may occasionally get out of sync with each other.

Microsoft sees hotmail.com, live.com, msn.com and outlook.com as a single account. They are all aliases to Microsoft. However if you subscribe with hotmail.com, the service only works with Hotmail and not with the other aliases.

Verify you can log into your account in your browser.

Verify that you have an outlook.com alias setup.

In Mail, remove the account.

Add back using the outlook.com email

Verify that it's working for send & receive in Connection Doctor (Under Window in the Menu bar)

Select the alias you want to use from the popup in the Mail Account window.

You aren't adding an account, you are adding an alias. It's all one big Microsoft account.

I suspect Microsoft did something at the server level to push users to the new outlook.com email addresses because of the number of reports where using the old alias hotmail.com, live.com, msn.com no longer work to setup the account in Mail.

While you can still use the aliases, you need to use your email alias for @outlook.com to setup the account.

If these are separate accounts, you can also setup aliases under each account for outlook.com, msn.com, hotmail.com, live.com.

Normally, users have aliases, but you can setup separate accounts that are not connected. Regardless, it now appears that Microsoft wants you to sign in using the outlook.com alias for each account.

I don't think you understand the difference between an alias and an account. Each account can have multiple aliases using @outlook.com, @live.com, @hotmail.com, @msn.com. All messages sent to these aliases go to one Inbox.

You selected to create a new account for your different emails. These use separate Inboxes.

Microsoft appears to be trying to get users to switch to outlook.com. Apple Mail could also be set to recognize outlook.com in auto setup. As a result you could have issues connecting. Different versions of Mail could behave differently. The next step is to determine if the problem exist in your User folder. Testing in a new User will quickly tell you if the problem is system wide or if it's your User's folder that contains the problem.

You can use the Guest User or create a new User for testing.

The mail accounts still work on another laptop.

Try setting up the account in a new User or the Guest User. This will eliminate any problems in your User account. If it works, then you will need to reset some files in your User to get Mail working.

CREATE A NEW USER

Go to System Preferences --> Create a New User in Users & Groups.

Switch to the New User by logging out under the Apple in the Menu Bar.

Log into the new User.

You can skip logging in with an Apple ID unless you need to test an iCloud feature. Hit continue then skip.

Only Apple apps will be in the Dock.

Open Mail

Add your account and check to see if it connects in Connection Doctor.