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AOL mail not working on iPhone

Okay weird problem. I have been using AOL for over 20 years and have had the same email address. I have others, but this is my main email, so changing it as my main email would be cumbersome.


Anyway, a few days ago, my iPhone stopped updating with AOL email messages. I could access messages that were on my phone from that point and before, but nothing current, as in the past few days. So I went through Apple's troubleshooting steps of deleting the AOL account from the Settings on my iPhone, reinstalled it, and lo and behold, my phone's settings keeps telling me I have either the wrong password or the wrong email address/Name.


I tried this several times to no avail.


So I went onto my browser to make sure I had all my details correct (name, email address, password) and verified I did. So now, scratching my head, I used Safari to access AOL's site directly through the browser on phone. It asked me for my email address and password, and it works fine! Okay, so then I downloaded the AOL app, went through basic setup, same email, same password, and it also works fine!


Weird!


At this point I just removed the "Mail" icon from the first page of my Home Screen and replaced it with the App I just downloaded. It works fine, as does Safari. So obviously there is something wrong with my phone's settings. I just did the latest iOS update to see if that would help, and it doesn't.


So at this point, while I have AOL mail on my phone, both with the newly downloaded App as well as with a Safari Browser window, I would LOVE to know why the stock "Mail" app no longer works, and why my phone's "Settings" keeps spitting back an error message even though the password and email address work everywhere else but there.

[Re-Titled by Host]

iPhone 6s Plus, null

Posted on Mar 7, 2018 8:04 AM

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Posted on Apr 20, 2018 5:52 PM

Ok after dealing with this for 7 weeks it finally dawned on me. When u go into settings for ur AOL account under account security there is a 2 step log in process. Click manage. Make sure it’s turned on. Then under Connect Apps click manage. Click the down arrow for create a new application and choose IOS mail and the device is whatever device u r using (ie: iPhone, iPad etc). Click create. It will give u a password. Copy the password. Then go into create an aol account through the iPhone mail app and use the copied password. Hope this helps.

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Apr 20, 2018 5:52 PM in response to ChiroVette

Ok after dealing with this for 7 weeks it finally dawned on me. When u go into settings for ur AOL account under account security there is a 2 step log in process. Click manage. Make sure it’s turned on. Then under Connect Apps click manage. Click the down arrow for create a new application and choose IOS mail and the device is whatever device u r using (ie: iPhone, iPad etc). Click create. It will give u a password. Copy the password. Then go into create an aol account through the iPhone mail app and use the copied password. Hope this helps.

Mar 7, 2018 8:46 AM in response to Demo

Can't seem to get that far. I just retried it again, and when I enter all the email information, including the correct password (verified on my PC, on Safari's browser on my phone, as well as the actual AOL app available in the app store) I get the following message:


Cannot Get Mail

The user name or password for "imap.aol.com" is incorrect

What is odd is I can sort of force my iPhone to accept it anyway by hitting "next" again. I get the warning, "This account may not be able to send or receive emails. Are you sure you want to save?" But I can still click on "Save."


This gives me the AOL icon back into my "Accounts & Passwords" section of the settings.


But when I click on Account it shows my email address, name, and password. I tried going into Account > Outgoing Server Mail > smto.aol.com > "Primary Server" there. But it just shows the same information, and my password is greyed out, and cannot be edited. But I counted the characters and it is right. Under that, and also greyed out, is "Use SSL" which is set to on (green) and cannot be changed. And then under that, it says "Authentication" and to the right it says "Password" but that is greyed out so I cannot go into there.


Under that, it says "Server Port 465" and there is an option to "Delete Server," which I tried, but then I have to start all over again with the same results.

Apr 28, 2018 12:05 AM in response to ChiroVette

I’ve had the same problem, finally found a solution. Use safari go to aol.com to sign in. Go to account security, then click on generate app password, from there you will see “select app” click on iPhone mail. Then press generate. Copy the password it generates, go back to settings, account and passwords and add account, aol. Input your name and username but instead of your own password paste on the one you copy from safari.

Dec 19, 2018 2:20 PM in response to ChiroVette

I had the same problem. New AOL email was not showing up on either my iPhone or iPad. I solved it like this:

Went to https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201320#automatic , and followed the instructions to "Add an email account to your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch". I did it on my iPhone, and as soon as I did that, it started working on both my iPhone and my iPad. That left 2 duplicate AOL accounts on my iPhone. I deleted one of them, and everything was back to normal.

Jul 25, 2018 12:39 PM in response to Caffsmum

Not all wrong, but remember this is a user-to-user technical support forum, not a way to contact Apple.


Let me try to summarize the ways to fix AOL problems (and they are AOL problems, not iPhone):

  • If you have 2 factor authentication (2FA) enabled on your AOL account you must generate an application-specific password to use your AOL email with the built-in Mail app. You do this in the security settings on your account on the AOL web site.
  • If you don't have 2FA enabled you must go to your AOL security settings on their web site and loosen restrictions temporarily on security to set up the account, or log in to AOL using the Safari web browser, then set up the email account while logged in.
  • Probably the easiest way, however, is to download the AOL mail app from the app store and use it instead of the built in mail app.


All of these have been described in more detail by other users in this thread.

Aug 7, 2018 1:40 PM in response to iphone35

Except you no longer have the security protection of 2 step verification. If you plan to continue this way you should have a very secure password, preferably 20 random characters that will be unguessable by anyone who knows you and unhackable when some website where you use it gets compromised.


There are 2 solutions where you can have your cake and eat it too.

  1. Enable 2 step verification, then generate an application specific password to use with the Apple mail app for AOL
  2. Download and use the AOL email app instead of Apple's mail app.

Mar 7, 2018 8:15 AM in response to ChiroVette

I really don’t think that this is the problem, since you aren’t getting incoming mail, but did you make sure that your password is entered and entered correctly in the outgoing mail server setting?


Settings>Accounts & Passwords>Your AOL account>Account>Outgoing server setting>SMTP>Primary Server. Check the password in there. As I said, that should onlt affect issues with outgoing mail, but anytime I have had issues with my 4 email accounts, it was because something had gone awry in that setting.

Mar 7, 2018 10:11 AM in response to ChiroVette

ChiroVette wrote:


But when I click on Account it shows my email address, name, and password. I tried going into Account > Outgoing Server Mail > smto.aol.com > "Primary Server" there. But it just shows the same information, and my password is greyed out, and cannot be edited. But I counted the characters and it is right. Under that, and also greyed out, is "Use SSL" which is set to on (green) and cannot be changed. And then under that, it says "Authentication" and to the right it says "Password" but that is greyed out so I cannot go into there.


Under that, it says "Server Port 465" and there is an option to "Delete Server," which I tried, but then I have to start all over again with the same results.

This is exactly what I see on my AOL account. When the primary server is turned on, those settings along with the password are grayed out. You have to select another server or turn the primary server off in order to get into those Settings again.

Mar 7, 2018 11:59 PM in response to Demo

I am not sure exactly what you are suggesting here. I turned off the Primary Server, as you suggested, but now I have no server. It says I can add one manually, but I have no clue what I am supposed to add into the three fields after I click on "Add Server."


What I just tried, and what seemed to work to a point, was in the appropriate fields, I manually input the host name, which was smtp.aol.com, the User name, which was optional, and my password. This time it was a little more cooperative. It took a little longer to go through the verification, but it seemed to accept it, and I thought it worked. But, now when opening the "Mail" app, it still shows AOL and my email address, but there is no mail in there. And I have no ability to send outgoing mail from my phone going through that app.


Note that I can still send and receive AOL mail using Safari and AOL's downloadable app. But the problem is that I now can no longer easily email files, such as pictures, from my phone using the "share" button.


If all it required was the extra step when using AOL's native app, that would be fine. BUT the problem is that it takes a ridiculously long time to send pictures now, where it used to upload them in seconds. I suspect that the downloadable AOL app in the iTunes Store is simply a lot slower with file sending than using the native "Mail" app that comes stock with the phone.



Edit: One more thing. When I go into "Advanced" or into "Other Server" and click on "smtp.aol.com" which is "on"when I click on "Authentication" there is a check mark next to "Password" which would seem to indicate that the password was verified as correct.


I tried this both by turning the Primary Server On and then turning it off, and using only the "Other SMPT Servers" which in this case is just a duplicate of the Primary anyway. However, either way, I still have no mail in any mailbox, and I have no ability to send messages from the "Mail" app on my homescreen. I have plenty of messages in all boxes, by the way, all of which I can see on my PC browsers, iPad, and on all my iPhone mail vehicles that still work (Safari and downloaded AOL app).

Mar 8, 2018 12:46 AM in response to Briansyddall

Thanks, Brian, I did all that, and to no avail. The furthest I was able to get was to use those secondary servers (Other Servers) and it accepted the password, name, and email, as evidenced by "check marks."


One oddity is that after jumping through all of those hoops I typed out above, I am now able to SEND email from the "Mail" app. At least to myself. I just verified it by going into the pictures on my iPhone and clicking the share button, and choosing "Mail" then sending it to my email address. I also went directly into the "Mail" app from my home screen and typed another test email longhand and sent it to myself.


In both cases, I received the emails to my PC as well as Safari and AOL's app which I installed yesterday. But my AOL mailbox in the "Mail" app remains empty. Additionally, when I click on the bottom bar that says "Checking for mail" I get the following error message:


The mail server "imap.aol.com" is not responding. Verify that you have entered the correct account into in Mail settings.

Now another oddity about this is that I checked the "sender" information in all these test emails, and sure enough, it is from my email to the same email address. The automatic signature even says, "Sent from my iPhone." So now it is not possible that the account information is wrong or the password incorrect. Because if this were the case, then why would the Mail app be able to send emails, both from the "share" button with my iPhone files or, alternatively, by going into the very app (that has no messages in it) and typing it out?


One more weird thing: All my mail folders in the "Mail" app have disappeared except for "inbox" and "VIP." So I can no longer even go into the "Sent" to see the messages I sent.


Now I am starting to wonder seriously if this is an AOL server-side issue, and not a problem with my phone.

Mar 8, 2018 4:21 AM in response to ChiroVette

At this point, and as much as you probably don’t want to do this, I would delete the account, restart the phone and start all over again. Many times that’s the best course of action after you have made changes in the current account and the changes have failed.


If that still fails, you can try contacting AOL for help, but more often than not, in my experience, AOL is going to say that it’s an Apple issue not an AOL problem. I just don’t know what else to do at this point.

Mar 8, 2018 4:43 AM in response to Demo

I deleted the AOL account from my phone already. That was the first thing I tried, deleting it, restarting the phone, then re-adding the AOL account. I did this many times, including adding alternate, Secondary Servers with the same smpt name, and disabling the primary, then re-enabling it after that didn't work.


I don't think its a problem with my phone or Internet connection, because AOL works on both Safari and on the AOL App I installed the other day, and it works fine on my PC.


Honestly, if I had to guess, I would say that there is some problem with AOL on their server side. I don't see what else can be the case, since I have deleted and reinstalled AOL from "Accounts & Passwords" in the iPhone's settings menu many times now.

Mar 8, 2018 6:31 AM in response to ChiroVette

I got to work this morning and found that we were having some minor issues with sending our AOL mail. It seems to be working OK now, but I know that it has gotten a little less reliable for us over the past few months.


It certainly couldn’t hurt for you to contact AOL support and see if they can help.

Mar 20, 2018 9:49 AM in response to ChiroVette

I am having the exact same problem! I was beginning to think it was just me, because I have done so many google searches and haven't really found anything. I have tried many of the same things you have, except for maybe the one of going in and turning off the Primary server. So that's what I'm going to try next. But as far as what you said happened to you, is exactly what happened to me. The mail app was working fine on my iphone 6S plus running ios 11.x.x and then all of a sudden, without me changing a thing, just started not downloading my incoming mail like it should. It just kept getting progressively worse to the point that's when I ended up deleting my AOL email account and adding it back in but after I did that I was completely screwed. I did exactly what you did and installed the AOL mail app from the app store on my phone which works just like it should. Along with doing the same thing and going to my desktop and signing into AOL mail on my browser and that too worked just like it should. I also at one point even changed my password for AOL, because I read somewhere that it might help resolve this issue. Wrong again! So if there is anyone out there that can assist us, please do! I too am just like you and have had this AOL email address for MANY years and also use it as my main email account. So getting this back to working order on the native iphone mail app is also very important to me!

AOL mail not working on iPhone

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