AOL mail not working on iPhone

Work around:

Delete your AOL email account across all devices (iPhone, iPad, Mac).

Using Safari or Firefox, change your AOL password.

Do a hard reset on your iPhone/iPad. Simply restarting my MacPro worked, too.

After all reboot, add your AOL email accounts with the new password.

I was not able to send or reply to email prior to this fix. It has been working for me for the last 4 days.

AOL is aware of the problem and blames it on the "merger" with Verizon and Yahoo. However, they say they do not have a solution or a time frame when it will be fixed. For now, the above solves the issue.

I actually logged into my AOL account on a computer and under security once you choose two factor authentication then you can choose to enable apps and I believe I selected mail on my iPhone to enable. Once I selected that it gave me the steps with a special code that would be used for the password to set up aol mail on my phone. Then I removed AOL mail from my phone turned it off and turned it back on again. Then when I set AOL Mail back up on my phone I used that special code as the password instead of the normal password.

That means that you have 2 factor authentication enabled on your AOL email account. As the Apple Mail app is not tied in to AOL's 2 factor authentication service you need to create an "application specific password" for it, as you did. The other alternative would be to use the AOL Mail app on your phone instead of Apple's mail app.

Mjn49er1 wrote:

I do not have 2 part authentication either. I did go and delete account again and then reinstalled it. Now SOMEHOW I am able to send emails for now.. magically works now. Only took 3 months lol

It's not magic. An email account is composed of 2 separate parts. The Incoming and Outgoing functions use different servers, and each requires a user ID and passcode. For most ISPs they are the same server addresses, but they don't have to be. If you change your password for the account you thus must change it in 2 places. Or delete the account and add it back; the new account process inserts the password into both the incoming and outgoing server settings.

So I couldn't get my aol mail on my Iphone in Mail. I had been hacked and had changed my aol passwords. But I couldn't get the new password to work or the emails in Mail. I deleted my accounts and tried restoring them. Nothing worked. But I had also changed a setting in aol, when I changed the password, that said I couldn't sign in from a device that didn't have strict security protocols. Didn't realize this meant my iphone! After struggling and researching for hours, I logged into my aol from my computer and there were all these emails saying they had blocked my log in! So avoid being as stupid as I was. The solution may be in the aol settings and nothing to do with the phone!

Hi Carol. Also a Verizon person now using AOL mail. In the past when I have had this problem, turning off and turning back on worked. This past Sunday that did not work so I deleted and reinstalled the account in the mail app on my iPad and then suddenly it worked on both my iPad and iPhone. Then, today, got the error message again on both devices. So I logged into my AOL account on Safari on my Mac, changed my password, then changed my password on my iPad and iPhone, and it's working again.

I prefer using the Mail app on my devices because I can have one in-box for my accounts. But if this keeps happening I might have to use the AOL app. Or maybe just switch to Gmail!

Not great advice. If it's on, generate an Application Specific Password. Leave it on. It's your only protection against hackers. AOL mail is one of the most widely hacked email services, primarily because AOL users tend to use easily guessed passwords. If your password isn't at least 12 random characters (preferably 20) your AOL account will be hacked eventually, unless you have 2 Factor Authentication enabled.

Hi

Log in on Aol.com with your Email and password... open the account settings...

now you got two options...

1: Enable 2-step authentication and create a password for the way your prefer to look your Inbox (iphone mail app, ipad mail app, etc etc.) and use this Created password and your email adress to log in instead of the real Password

OR

2: DISABLE (if activated) 2-step authentication and ACTIVATE the option down beneath it... (allow non secure Apps to acces the mail inbox)... and then just set up the device you would like to use Aol mail with , with the regular password and Email adress.

Both ways worked for me on. Hope to help some of you.

HOPE AOL and APPLE will fix this weired problem T.O.G.E.T.H.E.R... saying this is a AOL Problem OR saying this is an Apple problem.. did not solve it... sometimes only teamwork can do the fix.

Best wishes

DC2NI

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.

Ok this is how you fix it. Had all the exact same issues. Go to Safari on iPhone> log in to AOL>then select account>account security>manage app passwords,(does not have to be aol app, works the same just for phone mail app)>select iPhone mail>generate password. It will be a long password. Write it down, when you go back to Email settings on iPhone, it will be this password you put in your phone including spaces in between. It will not be your normal password. AOL now has a two step authentication. Once you enter this password. Check marks will appear by all aol related items. Your phone will automatically default to iCloud email, go to Email under settings, change default to AOL. Done it works. My husband had every issue all others had. This is the fix. Hope this helps!

i just spent days on this and the smtp.aol.com would not work

then I input another app specific password, kept my AOL two-factor authentication, but on the iPhone settings screen enabled SSL on the smtp page. And that seems to work. Crossed fingers.

This happens to me with my iOS Mail app and my AOL account. At seemingly random times it stops being able to retrieve new emails and the error code says that my username and/or password are incorrect. I've been able to correct this every time it happens by going to my Safari browser, logging out of my AOL account on AOL Mail's website and then logging back in.

After I do that, when I return to my iOS Mail app and refresh it is able to receive and send mail again with no issues. It's mildly inconvenient but it doesn't occur daily, so I haven't really looked for a better solution.

All of my inbound and outbound email credentials and imap data is 100% accurate, so it's not that. I suspect this is something on AOL's end that gets hung up, and a log out/in on the device clears it up.

UPDATE.......since mail was being rec'd and sent on web with no problem. I went on my PC changed my password and then changed password on all my devices. Mail started to work again without issues on devices. So this worked for me.

Go to your laptop. Go to Aol.com....change the password and then go to your iPhone and change to match new password. I think this should work. (did for me only I have PC not laptop and thats what I did and it worked)