iCloud email on Android

[exgarymac]

Now I have converted all my mails to an iCloud address I have been trying to get my Android phone to receive iCloud mails. I have searched the net and followed several set-up instructions with no success whatever. I have also tried using Android Outlook.
Is there something special I need to do to get the two systems talking on Android?

 

[Raz0rEdge]

Pretty detailed instructions: How to set up an iCloud email account on Android | Android Central

 

[exgarymac]

That is very helpful, thank you Ashwin........BUT got the same failure outcome as previously. After input of the generated password it says "email address or password incorrect" and refuses to progress.
I have checked and rechecked all input and tried several times, even trying an upper case "I" for the icloud part of my address and using underscores instead of hyphens in the generated password.

There must be something basic here which I am missing.
Richard

 

[exgarymac]

The password is being input on the Android device so perhaps there is something on those devices where characters are differing keyboards.
Richard

 

[Raz0rEdge]

The problem with app-specific passwords is that since they are generated, some of the characters are easily confused. The type of keyboard you have doesn't affect the password being entered. If it didn't work the first time, you might want to delete the password you generated and generate a new one.

 

[exgarymac]

Thanks. Tried that but still no further. By trial and error I did get as far as a new message "Couldn't open connection to server". I have been fiddling about with PORT 993 or 143 but just getting more confused.

 

[Raz0rEdge]

Are you using the Gmail app? You should be using the settings defined in this page for starters.

 

[exgarymac]

I have checked those settings but still fails on username/password. I assume I am using the Gmail App because I have had to set up a Gmail account.

 

[Raz0rEdge]

i don't have an Android device, so can't really help. On my iPhone, when I login to iCloud, I have access to mail immediately without doing anything else. All the articles I searched for seem to indicate the same process as the one I linked to above. If anyone does have an Android phone here and is using iCloud mail, they might chime in with some suggestions.

 

[exgarymac]

Grateful thanks for your patience, Ashwin. It must be something very basic which I am missing here. I too have searched the net and watched the YouTube all of which confirm the same process.
There is just one difference which I cannot solve, which is about when inputting the server address "imap.....". One video mentions that I need the iCloud server number which serves my account then when inputting the server address I should prefix it with that number eg. "xxx.imap........".
Problem is I don't know how to find my server number.
Also, I have been generating the password on my IMAC then typing into the android. I got further last evening by omitting the hyphens at input and that got me a bit further to a message "couldn't open connection to server".
Richard

 

[Raz0rEdge]

You traditionally only use the normal IMAP/SMTP address. Behind the scenes it will route to an individual server, but that's not something you need to worry about.

 

[exgarymac]

Thank you for the reassurance. I really do not know which way to turn now but I shall not let it rest until I identify whatever very basic factor is standing in my way......if only to help others when I post success on the forum. I guess the easy way would have been to get an iPhone instead of Android, but that is where I am.

 

[exgarymac]

Just to clarify, is wi-fi essential to getting an iCloud mail service on Android? I have tried both ways - with wi-fi and just through my telephone network contract, with the same result, but just thought I might narrow the options if there is a restriction.
Richard

 

[Raz0rEdge]

Nope, as long as you have Internet access through WiFI or your data plan, you can access iCloud mail.

 

[exgarymac]

I have not given up.
A friend suggested setting a RULE in MAC to get every iCloud mail forwarded to android. I did that, and it works every time. Great, I thought, until I tried replying to from Android. Reply only gets back to my iCloud account - not the original sender. True to form, when Mac receives my android reply it forwards that back to android too - what fun.
Getting a bit closer but does not solve the problem. I tried REPLY TO ALL from android but that does not improve things either.

 

[exgarymac]

Ashwin, having decided my problem has to be something very basic I have been thinking right back to roots and have come up with a theory which might be the cause.
When I switched from PC to MAC I needed to set up an iCloud account. The only email address I had at that time was a non-iCloud ISP so I used that as my identity. Then I was able to set up a couple of iCloud email accounts.
Now, during Android setup I go into my account (old ISP email address) to generate the App Specific Password. Then when I try to set up Android for my iCloud address it tells me the Identity or Password don’t match - it now occurs to me that is probably because the App Specific Password is referencing the OLD email being the iCloud identity, not my iCloud address.
Intent on rectifying this I went back to my iCloud account to use the “change identity” facility to install my iCloud email address as my iCloud identity. Nope! iCloud will not accept it saying I “can only add @iCloud address already on file in your account”. Very strange because my iCloud addresses work perfectly, so does that mean that my iCloud email addresses are NOT part of this iCloud account?
If I cannot change the identity of the iCloud account should I just scrap that account, disable or ignore it somehow, then set up a completely fresh iCloud account. My concern is that by doing that I might lose all my mailbox facilities and have to start again from the start point. I use time Machine to backup everything so could presumably reload somehow.
Assuming my basic theory about the App Specific Password is feasible, do you have any ideas how I should proceed?

 

[exgarymac]

ALL SORTED!
Made real progress to-day with a telephone call to the Apple Genius Bar. Very helpful and patient lady while we tried things for nearly half an hour. Anyway, I let her have access to my desktop Apple stuff and she guided me to identify that I do, in fact, have an account in the name of my iCloud email address. So my hunch was correct about the password matching the wrong email address. So it was something extremely basic and I now know about the other account which I must have set up unknowingly sometime.
Very grateful thanks for all suggestions........problem resolved.
Richard