AOL suddenly not receiving email

Hi MozeyO,

I am far from "tech-y" so please bear with me here. I have had the same AOL error messages on my Iphone 7 for days, tried everything and nothing worked. I ended up going into my AOL account from my computer and fixing it this way:

Sign onto your AOL account through your computer.

choose your Name at the top right to get into your Account

"Account Security", scroll to bottom

"Manage APP Passwords"

"Iphone Mail"

Select your APP from the Dropdown list

click "Generate" in the blue box, a code will pop up, (write it down).

I then went into my Iphone and deleted the AOL mail from the phone so I could get a fresh start. Setup AOL again... Settings, Accounts & Passwords, Add account, choose AOL, here's the trick... when you go to setup the AOL account instead of using your regular AOL password, Use the Password that was Generated on your computer (the one you wrote down). Now you should be good to go!

Hope this helps!

probably way to late to join this but I had same problem and then worked out it was due to the 2 factor password system I'd set up. So try logging on through a browser and trigger a password (for iPhone) in the security settings then enter that instead of your normal AOL PW. This avoids doing a hard reset which is not good for the phone

I had the same question. Log into your aol account thru safari and go to your security settings and set up your two step verification and right below it is Manage Ap Passwords. Chose the device your setting up and it will give you a password to use, use that password as your regular password on your iphone or ipad instead of your regular password and your should be golden. Good luck! PS I just did it and it works like a charm.

Try this:

Go to AOL security settings (e.g., from web version via browser.)

Enable AOL to allow apps that use :less secure" sign on.

After three hours of trying to fix this, I tried this button. Worked right away.

Easy to fix after hours researching forums. It is due to an AOL Mail security and privacy settings update. Sign into AOL mail from a desktop or laptop computer and accept new security settings of "Allow apps that use less secure sign in" which corrects the issue. Your device's home "Mail" button should now import an AOL email address. Do not use the 2 factor security setting in AOL right above the "Allow apps" setting. The support team at Apple had no resolution for it and referred you to contact AOL. Hope this helps the next user to not waste half their day tryping to figure out.

Got this reply from AOL, I was having the same problem on some of my devices and Mac Mail (v11.5)

the second option worked for Mac Mail:

Based on the information provided, if you encounter no difficulties while trying to access your account through your desktop computer, the issue you experience on your mobile device might be caused by the use of 2 Step Verification. If you activated it for your AOL account, please note that third party apps require specific passwords in such cases. If you set up 2 Step Verification for your account, and would like to add an application specific password, you can follow the steps listed in the Help article below:

Create and manage third-party app passwords

If this is not the case and you continue to experience problems, the issue might be related to the email application you are using. For our member's safety, we block AOL Mail access from outdated third-party applications that can leave your account vulnerable. For more information about this and how to change your settings to allow access from your device, please refer to the Help article below:

Allow apps that use less secure sign in

I did this:

Step 1

- logged in to AOL using my desktop browser

- clicked on my name and then 'account security'

- clicked manage app password and generated an iPhone password

Step 2

Then on my iPhone I went to:

- Settings, accounts & passwords, add account, then added aol details but where is says password put the password generated by step one above not your usual AOL password.

Hope it works.

Guy

no does not work. But if you sign in on a desk top computer enter your password check your e mail then suddenly your iPad and I,phone e mail works

I have had this issue on my iPhone, Mac and MacBook intermittently over the past year. Some days all I have to do is keep re-entering my password and it suddenly works. As of yesterday all was fine - suddenly today it all no longer works. I am so scared of AOL and Apple's incompatibility that I am trying to migrate everything out of it but as we all know, that can be a real pain!

I will be glad to add the step of a hard reset on all devices (the only thing I had not been doing) but it's just nice to know that I'm not crazy - it's a known bug.

Thank you so much! I have not had the ability to send email for the past 3 days. This is on a MacPro (using Mail), iPhone X (using mail app), iPad Mini 4 (using mail app). After 2 calls to AOL and being told the problem is "known" with Apple users and is the result of AOL, Yahoo and Verizon forming one company under Oath Media. They said there is not a known fix - yet. I called Apple and was told the same thing.

I had deleted AOL and the re-added the account across all devices, only having the problem continue.

Your solution solved my problem on my iPhone X and my iPad mini 4.

I was having the same problem and followed your directions and it worked!!! Thanks so much as I have been trying everything I could think of for the last hour. Very much appreciate you posting your suggestion! Debbie

Just got a new iPhone 8. Having same problem. Can’t receive or send mail. Same imap.aol.com problem. When I deleted aol and try to reinstall it tells me there’s a problem. I will try to follow steps but how do I change password. And which password am I suppose to change. I can’t keep up with all the passcodes thanks in adva

Thanks so much for your suggestion. I had the same problem you were experiencing and knowing the time and trouble you spent on the phone with Apple and AOL I tried your solution and it worked just great. Can't thank you enough for saving me all the time and hassle on the phone. Appreciate your help. Sincerely, Mike H.

This is weird, but I've been trying to solve this same problem for a couple of hours, deleting and re-entering info. Decided to Google, and was just about to try the above steps, but when I went to look at my phone... there were my emails!