lost smtp on my mail; cannot "send", yet can receive.

I have El Capitan, OS-X and have 3 e-mail programs:
a Cox account, a gmail account, and a work account

Today the outgoing mail will not send. Approximately 3 months ago, maybe longer, I started having problems with the smtp and had difficulty sending (had to go through several steps to send, like reentering my pw, then it said didn't mail, then went to "send" in control bar,
and hit send and it would go. Now it won't send at all, but can receive incoming (POP).
Suggestions?
Steve

By far an away the best method of fixing issues with email accounts and server settings seems to be deleting the account in question with the minus button on the mail email accounts window and reinstalling, just like a new account. Assuming you have the user name, address and password the connection wizard will fill in the rest. Alternatively you will need to obtain the current details from your provider and enter manually.


Sent from my iPhone using Mac Forums

Use caution when deleting any mail account, as the deletion will also remove all the mail boxes and mail associated with that account. Make sure you have a good backup of all your mail before messing with the accounts. A good way to backup mail is to export individual mail to PDF and export mailboxes to "mbox" format. Restoring mail using Time Machine is hit and miss. We do not recommend relying on Time Machine alone to backup mail. Another good method would be to use Carbon Copy Cloner.

POP= post office protocol, SMTP=simple mail transfer protocol it's easier to remember SMTP= send mail to people. If your error is SMTP go to accounts/edit, select the account verify user name, password and provider/host name are correct and you should be good to go! Usually the host name is screwed, in my particular it's mail.comcast.net
This should be an easy fix.

Chscag's point is a good one assuming you need or want your old emails. Personally I delete all my old emails within a month of receipt. Of course I save important ones as PDF's and download necessary attachments on receipt. Some people never delete emails, an alien concept to me. My server retains the originals, I do not delete from the server, they are deleted automatically after 6 months or if I exceed my storage (which has never happened). Whenever I perform a "clean" macOS install my emails are all downloaded anew when I re add my accounts. This is what happens if you remove then re add an email account. So unless your email provider does not have an online access site I cannot see how you could loose your old emails.

Ok, those sound like good ideas. However, I have an iMac and I cannot follow those directions. I cannot find the places to go to the account, where to then? I cannot find. The listing of my 3 accounts is there, and one does show some data, but I cannot edit, won't let me. The one is my Cox account, and the Google and my work account cannot be accessed that I can find. Sorry, but I'm baffled.

Open Mail. Once it is open, then click on the "Mail" at the top bar, then Preferences. In the resulting window, click on Accounts. In the left box should be your three email accounts. Now click on any one of them and in the right side you should see three boxes at the top named "Account Information," "Mailbox Behaviors," and "Server Settings." Click on Server Settings.

In that window now should be two parts, an Incoming Mail server (assuming it's "POP" or "IMAP") and some information about your account name, password and the host for receiving. In the lower half is the Outgoing Mail Server (SMTP). Enter whatever information is appropriate from your three mail providers along with your account name and password. You will have to contact your provider for the server name, we cannot know what you need to enter.

Your work account may be an Exchange server (you didn't say). For that you will need to get the information from your work IT folks.

I should have asked, as you have three accounts, are you having problems with one or all? And if just one, which one?

Ok, I ended up calling Apple for help and they were not able to help. Luckily I have an iPhone XR and can receive and send in those, but no luck on the iMac. A very belated thanks to all who wrote. I’ll keep trying.

stevesandoliver said:

Luckily I have an iPhone XR and can receive and send in those, but no luck on the iMac

Click to expand...

As Rod asked above, are all accounts affected??? I would think that would be rather odd if they were all goofy and not working.

Have you checked the "Connection Doctor" to make sure the servers are actually ßonline.

Do any of them work using webmail???

Double check the settings on the iphone and compare them to what you have on your Mac.

Also try shutting down your Mac, wait 30-40 seconds and reboot and try again.

Check with your appropriate ISPs in case they have changed some settings they forgot to tell you about.


- Patrick
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And what have you been trying in the four years between posts?

MacInWin said:

And what have you been trying in the four years between posts?

Click to expand...

LOL...

Man, I sure missed that one... I guess one would have to call that seriously belated email...


- Patrick
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