aol security settings in mail

Tesserax,

I have six AOL accounts. In several if not all of these accounts I received the same message that BarryMacMan did. I'm running Sierra 10.12.6 with Mail v10.3 (3273) on a Retina 5K, 27-inch, Late 2014 iMac. These AOL mail accounts have worked fine for many, many years on my Macs and iPhones/iPads. I use the AOL accounts ONLY for email.

I do not have all of my AOL accounts installed on all of my Apple devices. To test your instructions, I added an AOL account not previously residing on my iMac. Following your bullet 3, BEFORE clicking on Sign In, I held down the Option key and then clicked Sign In. I did not get the opportunity you mentioned to edit any settings. Instead, I got this:

I deleted the newly-added account and tried a second time with the same result.

When I go to Mail > Preferences > Accounts, select any AOL account from the left hand column, then Server Settings and scroll down to the bottom of Outgoing Mail Account to get to Edit SMTP Server list, NONE of my AOL accounts appear in the resulting window. The only accounts shown are my local FreeNet's POP accounts and my iCloud account (but not my @mac account).

I don't find any way to view or edit the settings on my AOL accounts.

Any help or suggestions will be greatly appreciated as not only do I have to manage my AOL accounts, but I am the "Sys Admin" for my wife, my daughter and my granddaughter, all of whom have Macs and iPhones with AOL accounts.

Thanks a lot!

Don

Give the following a try while running the Mail app on your Mac:

• Either disable or delete your existing AOL account in the Mail app.
• Create a new AOL email account.
  • Mail > Preferences > Accounts > "+" > AOL > Continue
  • Enter your name, AOL email address, and AOL email account password.
  • BEFORE clicking on Sign In, hold down the Option key, and then, click on Sign In.
  • You will now have the opportunity to enter both the account type (POP or IMAP), the Incoming (POP or IMAP) and Outgoing (SMTP) servers used by your email provider, and the SSL/TLS settings. Note: For the best security, use SMTP - 587 - SSL/TLS for your outgoing server's settings.

Tesserax, Odd problems myself here. I'm with AOL, recently migrated from Verizon and retaining verizon.net. Was able to recently move to the AOL servers with a pop account and configuration. Not so with IMAP.

After much effort, was able to move off the Verizon servers and get the incoming <pop.aol.com> and outgoing <smtp.aol.com> to take.

When signing in through my browser or using Mail 11.0, email address and password info is accepted. Mail is able to create the pop account, just not the IMAP account. When I try to add the account...unable to verify. I tried the option key in tandem with the sign in button, but it didn't do anything different.

Not sure if I'm looking at an operator's head space issue on my part or if there is a fix for this.

Yes. At step 6, clicking Sign In, with and without the option key, returns the 'Unable to Verify...' response. I have disabled, fully deleted and rebuilt, but it doesn't accept the automated setup. Manual setup creates a pop account only.

I've also gone into the browser, signed in, even changed my password and the current pop account accepts the new one.

Not able to complete the aol imap setup.

My iPhone iPad, etc have these settings, but after setting up AOL mail on the Mac the way we were instructed some months ago, I too do not seem to have the options on changing the settings on desktop mail.

Bear in mind, I'm not a techie... I followed your steps above on my (up to date) MacBook Air, but upon entering my AOL account and password, a new window popped up saying it was a Duplicate Account. I could not get passed this point, and I don't want to lose this old AOL account, it's been in the family since the mid-90's. Please tell me you have more advice for us AOL users. Thanks.

As far as the automated setup, have a 76-year old friend who was running Sierra and I went to upgrade him to High Sierra. After doing so, I upgraded his Mac Mail to the aol servers with the automated setup and his account is imap. It went smooth and exactly as it should. Both the Mail and AOL are happy.

In most regards, both iMac's are the same. Mail working on one iMac so smoothly and not another is confusing.

Try Mail/Preferences/Accounts/Server Settings - click on the dropdown menu, then select Edit SMTP Server list. Find the account and delete it. Then try adding it back. You also might need to go to System Preferences/Internet Accounts and delete the account there.

Eric,

Thanks. May help Roey and Ralph above. Didn't help me. The other day, I did delete the pop account, even at one point, my iCloud account...adding everything back in. Used system preferences to add accounts, as well as mail.

In deference to your suggestion, I did exactly how you suggested above. Again, the same results. It's disconcerting, but not a showstopper as I only have the one device, the iMac, and it's giving me the pop account. Patience and perseverance are the watchwords here.

Eric, I went to Mail/Preferences/Accounts/ - but, there's no "Server Settings" shown, so I can't click on the dropdown menu. Hence, I can't move forward with your instructions. All I want to do is continue viewing my AOL account on my iPhone, my Mac, and my iPad. It works perfectly now... but don't know what I'll have come Nov 7th according to AOL. Respectfully, Roey

Eric,

You say: "If you look further down that help page, there is information about how to add an account to Apple Mail using the automated setup."

What help page are you referring to and where do I find it?

Thanks!

Don

Eric, I've not replied back on this topic... because when I went back to Accounts, and followed your directions..., but we are NOT seeing the same screens. Others Apple uses have similar problems. There's got to be a better way for Apple users to get their AOL accounts to work on all our APPLE devices, before Nov 7th. Thanks again.

Unrelated to your question, but it's hard to find AOL Email users these days so I hope you understand my random posting. Have you been getting the "this mail is from a mailing list banner" since upgrading to iOS 11.1 in the native mail app? I'm beginning to think AOL stopped support for List-Unsubscribe (which is what makes the banner appear). I was presented with the banner in iOS 10.3 but not one time since upgrading to iOS 11. Trying to figure out if this is an isolated error for me or all AOL users.

Ctrix65513, Unrelated to the "banner" portion of your post, it may be hard for young people to find AOL Email users (except maybe their grandparents), but there are plenty of us out here. In my local 400+ member Mac club, we have over 100 people with AOL Email addresses. Admittedly, most of us are geezers, but in the Apple Universe there must be a significant number of AOL users, as witnessed by the fact that Mac System Preferences > Internet Accounts and iOS Mail settings still list AOL as one of the account choices. We are still out here.

My point is that Apple might want to be doing something or providing instructions that will allow AOL Email users to continue to send and receive email in compliance with AOL's recent requirements. I have not found any information on Apple Discussions that Apple has addressed our problem.

Don

If you look further down that help page, there is information about how to add an account to Apple Mail using the automated setup.