Mac mail (Mail.app) continually asking for Gmail password, then hangs

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Mac mail (Mail.app) continually asking for Gmail password, then hangs

Greetings everyone.

I've seen this issue reported by several others (recently here), but have yet to see a solution posted.

Issue is this: a few weeks ago, Mail.app started regularly asking for passwords to my Gmail accounts. Then last week it got to the point where Mail could no longer resolve the Gmail account password, and I can no longer receive Gmail via Mail.app.

When I click on the "broken connection" icon next to any of my Gmail account names, Mail opens a dropdown panel with the Gmail password interface. Email address is repopulated, so I click "Next;" then I enter my password, and the dropdown window goes blank, and eventually times out, with the only option is a "Cancel" button, like this:

Per advice posted to others on this forum I tried creating a new user account on my Mac, and when I add my Gmail accounts to Mail.app there, everything seems to work with no issue. I can send and receive Gmail for the first time in over a week. But when I return to my primary account, the issue persists.

I also tried using a beta version of Airmail; it could never connect to my Gmail accounts.

I tried using Spark, and it gave me the error: "Spark cannot access your iCloud Keychain (?!) required to sync your emails. Please restart your Mac and try again."

Any idea how to resolve this situation? It's definitely been disruptive, would love to get this resolved ASAP

Thanks in advance for any help.

—snoqualmie7

MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Late 2013)

macOS High Sierra v10.13.4

Posted on Jun 4, 2018 7:30 AM

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Answer 1

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Joseph_S.

Community Specialist

Jun 5, 2018 12:30 PM in response to snoqualmie77

Hello snoqualmie7,

Thank you for using Apple Support Communities!

I understand from your post that you can access your Gmail account when you add it to a new user account but not when going back to your main user account. If you have followed all the steps in the following article you may need to remove your email account from the main user account and add it back again.

If you can’t send or receive email on your Mac - Apple Support

The following article will provide you with the steps on how to remove your email account from your Mac:

Set up Mail on your Mac with email accounts - Apple Support

When you remove an email account from Mail, the account’s messages are deleted and no longer available on your Mac. Copies of messages remain on the account’s mail serverand are still available (from webmail, for example).

Important: If you’re unsure whether messages you want to keep are still on the mail server, move or copy them to a mailbox stored on your Mac (the mailbox appears in the On My Mac section in the Mail sidebar) before you delete the account in Mail.

Choose Mail > Preferences, then click Accounts.

Select an account, then click the Remove button .

Note: If the account is used by other apps on your Mac, you’re asked to remove the account in Internet Accounts System Preferences. Click the button to open Internet Accounts, then deselect the Mail checkbox for the account. To stop using the account in all apps, make sure the account is selected, then click the Remove button .

Best Regards.

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Mac mail (Mail.app) continually asking for Gmail password, then hangs

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