Can’t send email

[Saikungbob]

Hello, I have an ancient 27” iMac running MacOS 10.13.6 (I told you it is old!). It does pretty much everything thing that I need it to do, except that I can’t send email with the regular Apple Mail program.

I assume that the SMTP file has been corrupted, so I deleted and recreated all my email accounts, but that failed to solve the problem.

Any suggestions?

 

[Cory Cooper]

Hello and welcome.

Yours may be as old as my iMac (21.5-inch, Late 2009) running 10.13.6 High Sierra.

-How many mail accounts?
-Who are the providers - i.e. Gmail, Comcast, Hotmail, etc.?
-Did you delete the accounts in the Mail application, or in System Preferences... > Internet Accounts?

C

 

[Saikungbob]

The accounts are iCloud and gmail accounts. I deleted them through the Mail app, but these days isn't that the same of the Internet Accounts pane in Systems Preferences? I can always try again, but it really looks like the same panel pops up.

I do appreciate your help.

 

[Cory Cooper]

No problem.

It is always best to add/delete email accounts using the Internet Accounts preference pane rather than the Mail app itself. As always, make sure you have a current Time Machine or other backup of your data before performing steps that delete data.

It definitely could have something to do with the SMTP settings. Normally, iCloud and Gmail don't have any "visible" settings in Mail Preferences.

If those are the only two accounts you have setup, then you could use Edit SMTP Server List and remove any other accounts that may have settings there, and make sure that iCloud is set to iCloud and Gmail is set to Gmail.

C

 

[machub]

Are you in an older Mac version?

 

[Saikungbob]

No problem.

It is always best to add/delete email accounts using the Internet Accounts preference pane rather than the Mail app itself. As always, make sure you have a current Time Machine or other backup of your data before performing steps that delete data.

It definitely could have something to do with the SMTP settings. Normally, iCloud and Gmail don't have any "visible" settings in Mail Preferences.

View attachment 3283View attachment 3284
If those are the only two accounts you have setup, then you could use Edit SMTP Server List and remove any other accounts that may have settings there, and make sure that iCloud is set to iCloud and Gmail is set to Gmail.

C

No problem.

It is always best to add/delete email accounts using the Internet Accounts preference pane rather than the Mail app itself. As always, make sure you have a current Time Machine or other backup of your data before performing steps that delete data.

It definitely could have something to do with the SMTP settings. Normally, iCloud and Gmail don't have any "visible" settings in Mail Preferences.

View attachment 3283View attachment 3284
If those are the only two accounts you have setup, then you could use Edit SMTP Server List and remove any other accounts that may have settings there, and make sure that iCloud is set to iCloud and Gmail is set to Gmail.

C

Thanks for your reply. Unfortunately, we must be running different versions of the OS as the panel I see from system preferences is different. First, it's called "Internet Accounts," not simply accounts and then it doesn't provide the level of details shown in your example. I can't see the "Server Settings" "Mailbox behaviors or Account Information. I've running 10.13.6 on this machine. It's odd not being able to get to the actual server settings.

So, I'm not sure what to do now.

 

[Saikungbob]

Are you in an older Mac version?

Yes, this old machine is running 10.13.6 and won't run anything newer. That's part of my problem, as I've kept other Mac's up to date and can't recall the details of this older OS!

 

[Cory Cooper]

Understood...those screen shots are from (10.13.6 High Sierra) the Mail app > Preferences > Accounts > Server Settings, as I was showing what it should look like there. System Preferences... > Internet Accounts is where you should add/remove the accounts from, which then syncs to the Mail app. If you click on those in the screenshots, you can see the other SMTP servers and their settings.

Hope that helps,

C