Mail cannot take accounts online

I have seven email accounts with different providers, mostly of the likes of mail.com. I am not sure whether that is relevant. The real issue is that when I change from one wi-fi network to another, like home and work, Mail will be unable to take accounts online unless I restart my MBP. I have been trying some Mail setting changes as largely discussed over many other threads and no matter what I do, Mail won't work get the accounts online. However, when I to System Prefs / Accounts I get this message when clicking on the individual accounts: "Mail cannot send your password securely to the server. You can continue without a secured password, which could put your password at risk." I cancel and I am prompted for the passwords, but I get the same message over and over again. Has anybody got a solution for this?

Troubleshooting Apple Mail
What does Mail/Window/Connection Doctor Show? If the server is red, select it and look at the Show Details box.
Troubleshooting sending and receiving email messages
Troubleshooting sending email messages
SMTP servers keep going offline

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Mac won't take accounts online

As of this morning, Mail on both my iMac and Air will not take any accounts online. Ive tried repairing permissions, creating a new mail account, and creating a new user account but to no avail. I get no error messages, and all the information for all the accounts are correct...it just simply displays the triangle exlaimation but clicking on it, clicking "Take accounts online..." and clicking on the "Get Mail" button do absolutely nothing.
Im on OS X Lion with all the latest updates.

My apologies...I tried everything you suggested but to no avail. Ended up having to reinstall lion on both computers for it to work again. BTW I'm I'm NYC using Gmail, GoDaddy, and a corporate email acct from work.
Not sure what the issue really was but glad its back up and running, even though it was a huge pain.
Thanks for everyone's responses!

No mail content and "need to take account online" message

I lost preferences for safari and mail, I think after my son shut down while "firevault was recovering disc space." My mailboxes were intact in my users folder. I followed prompts to set up mail again, and somehow my mail reappeared, with mailbox folders intact and content in folders readable. I'm able to receive and send emails.
The problem: Inbox messages, both old and new, have no content. Instead each email says:
"The message from Tom Thumb <[email protected]> concerning “baker's son” has not been downloaded from the server. You need to take this account online in order to download it."
Really odd: the email content from emails I received since setting up again today is there for about 15 minutes, and then disappears, and I get the "not downloaded" message."
Connection doctor says I am connected to server.
The email content is intact on my server, and they say the problem is with mail program.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

thank you for clicking the "Solved" button and awarding the . As a "P.S.," one other thing that I've noticed, at least with my IMAP accounts, is how you usually will see a message count on the top of the Mail viewer pane, when you have a mailbox or folder highlighted (for example, mine will say something like "Inbox - home (107 messages)"), I have found that when it no longer displays the message count in parentheses in the title (i.e., it will just say "Inbox - home"), although I may still be able to see messages' contents, the list of messages, etc., Mail is getting ready to go squirrelly on me, so before that happens, as soon as I notice that the message count is not being displayed, I rebuild all the mailboxes. Sort of like a little preventive maintenance.

Missing Mail in POP account/ "Take account online in order to download it"?

Mail build 1.3.11 (OSX.3.9)
User has an issue with mail showing the following error (see snip below) message in a POP account. Actually, if this were IMAP it would make sense, but I've not yet seen this on a POP configuration in this applciation. After running the rebuild on the Inbox, these emails are now gone. Is there any way to retrieve these emails?
[snip]
The message from someone <[email protected]> concerning “Re:
paper” has not been downloaded from the server. You need to take this
account online in order to download it.
[end-o-snip]
Many thanks for any insight provided.

This error message indicates an "overstuffed" mailbox issue which means the mailbox has some corruption or is approaching or over the recommended size limit which is 1GB for Jaguar or Panther Mail.
If for the account's Inbox mailbox, quit Mail first and using the Finder go to Home > Library > Mail > this POP account named folder (named by the user name and incoming mail server for the account) > INBOX.mbox.
Move the INBOX.mbox to the Desktop.
When re-launching Mail, a new (and empty) INBOX.mbox will be created automatically by Mail within the account named folder. This will allow the Mail.app to function properly again and not risk losing any new received messages while working on the old INBOX.mbox moved to the Desktop to recover the existing messages.
Control-click on the old INBOX.mbox moved to the Desktop and at the menu window that appears, select Show Package Contents.
List the package content file names and size of each here.
This information is required before determining the next step to take to recover the existing messages.

Take account online to download message error WITH a twist

Mail is telling me that "The message from _ concerning _ has not been downloaded from the server. You need to take this account online in order to download it."
I've looked over many posts here about this problem, and many solutions involve moving the correlating .mbox folder to the desktop, re-opening mail, and rebuilding.
Here's the twist - I can't find my .mbox file, or the mailbox in Mail, but I can find all the "non-downloaded" messages when searching from within Mail. All the messages, until today, were in the mailbox that is now missing.
Where did my .mbox file go, and how can I restore the messages?
24" Intel iMac Mac OS X (10.4.10) 2.33 Ghz, 2GB RAM, 7600GT

Have you checked whether the missing mailbox is within some other folder? If the mailbox is nowhere to be seen in ~/Library/Mail/ and Spotlight doesn’t find anything, that means the messages are gone and what you’re seeing in Mail are just the entries that remain in the index — Mail displays that bogus error messages because it cannot find the *.emlx file associated with the message where the index says it should be. Re-creating the index would “fix” the problem by getting rid of the phantom entries, but won’t make the messages reappear.
Before doing anything, if the messages are gone and you don’t have a backup, you may try to salvage as many deleted *.emlx files as possible with a data recovery tool such as Data Rescue II, TechTool Pro, or FileSalvage. Of these, the only one I know for sure that can currently recover deleted *.emlx files is FileSalvage. Stop using your computer right now if you want to try that, as anything you do with the computer may cause the deleted files to be overwritten.
You should also verify/repair the disk (not just permissions), as described in the following article, in case there is some filesystem corruption that has a bearing on what happened:
The Repair functions of Disk Utility: what's it all about?

Cant view sent email says I need to take account online to view

Just out of the blue, I can no longer view my sent emails. When I click on them to resend or view what I wrote, I get this message
____has not been downloaded from the server. You need to take this account online in order to download it.
I have tried to delete previous emails thinking it was a memory problem, but that does not seem to work.
Any helpe would be appreciated.

Hello,
If, as your system info reports, you are running OS 10.3.x and using Mail 1.3.x, then you most likely have an Overstuffed mailbox. See:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=121837
If using Tiger (10.4.x) then it is most likely an indexing problem, and although overstuffing is possible in Mail 2.x, as well.
More info, please. If the mailbox is really huge, then there is a script to split it, so post back with further observations and info.
Ernie

I lost connectivity from my mail aol account, and can not use mail to email, the email account is off line. What do I need to change to bring the account in line? The take accounts online function will not allow it to go on line

Operating system is the 10.5.8

Welcome to Apple Support Communities.
First, just confirming that you realize you can always access your AOL email account by going directly to www.aol.com from the Safari browser (or Firefox, Chrome, etc.) until you get the Apple Mail problem fixed.
If you cannot connect directly through a browser, it's quite possible that AOL is doing maintenance or having a temporary problem. It happens with surprising frequency to most online hosts. I usually check downrightnow.com, but AOL is not one of the services for which they collect trouble reports.
Reconnecting your Apple Mail to your AOL account:
In the Apple Mail menubar, click on the Mailbox, Get New Mail, and highlight the AOL account.
You should see the 'spinning wheel' next to the account name for a moment while your AOL mail is retrieved.
That should successfully reconnect you.
Occasionally my ISP seems to corrupt a few packets and I'll get a message that all my external email account password are rejected, and asks me to re-enter them. Instead of re-entering passwords, I click 'cancel', and use this same procedure to re-connect.
NOTE: I'm on Snow Leopard OS X 10.6, and Mail 4.5 (1084) but I believe the process to reconnect did not change since OS X 10.5 Leopard.

Cannot take gmail "online" in mac mail

I am using a gmail account in my mac mail application. I have three different gmail accounts, but I am unable to get one of them to go "online". I can't detect what setting I am missing. Any advice out there?

Open System Preferences > Accessibility > Zoom
Select: Use keyboard shortcuts to zoom
BTW... if you don't tell us exactly what you have tried that didn't work, we have no way of knowing.
You might find something helpful in the Vision: Accessibility: Apple Support Communities
forum.

My apple mail is receiving my outlook/ company messages, but not gmail. Message is "take account online" but it won't. Outgoing gmail messages work.

My apple mail is receiving my outlook/company messages but not gmail. It says the account is offline, but won't go online. gmail messages do send. Help!

Remove the account and put it back again, use Internet Accounts (in System Preferences) to do this.

Take Account Online - Mail Account Locked

I keep getting my one account taken offline and when trying to access it, Mail states that the account is locked (busy with another mail client). Well, the only clients I have are Mail itself and the iPhone. Are these two clients locking my mail account and if so, how do I work around this? I want to use email from the phone and home computer.
Exact message is:
The mail server denied access to the account “Bellsouth” because an administrator or other mail client was using it when Mail tried to log in. Please try again later.
The server error encountered was: account busy (locked by another POP3 process)

Did any of you ever figure this out? I've been having the same issues for a while, and try and revisit the problem every few months. I have never found a simple solution other than to have iphone check email manually. Then you don't have the computer & iphone vying for pop3 access at the same time.
m

Mail wont take gmail online

Apple mail shows GMail off line. I get the following message when I select "take all accounts on line
"Unable to connect"
There may be a problem with the mail server or network. Verify the settings for account “Gmail” or try again.
The server returned the error: The connection to the server “imap.gmail.com” on port 465 timed out."
When I select take all accounts on line I get this message
"ALERT
There may be a problem with the mail server or network. Verify the settings for account “Gmail” or try again.
The server returned the error: The connection to the server “imap.gmail.com” on port 465 timed out.
I have had a long call with my service provider who checked all settings but to no avail.
Same issue with iPad mini and IPhone
OS10.9.3
Thanks for your help

If that doesn't work, try port 993.
http://email.about.com/od/accessinggmail/f/Gmail_IMAP_Settings.htm

Take Account Online checkbox for new account?

Does anyone know what this checkbox is for? I am noticing (after setting up about five accounts) that if I CHECK this box my account is active and if I DON'T check the box it is not active.
Is there a way to /activate/ this box after the fact?
I really really don't want to have to go back and set up all the accounts all over again that I didn't check the box and which are not working.
THANKS

oops image is here: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/15285654/Screen%20shot%202012-02-28%20at%2008.00.16%20PM .tif

TS3276 I have installed OS X Mavericks on macbook pro, macbook air & iMac but I am having terrible trouble with apple Mail. I need to take all accounts online frequently OR worse I have to quit mail and restart computer. Is anyone else having problems?

I have installed OS X Mavericks on macbook pro, macbook air & iMac but I am having terrible trouble with apple Mail. I need to take all accounts online frequently OR worse I have to quit mail and restart computer. Is anyone else having problems?

I just checked to see if the update to OS X Yosemite 10.10.1 solved any of the issues outlined in my previous post, and to my dismay, nothing has changed -- all of the previous problems persist.
My iMac (8) -- it's renamed itself eight times since the recent troubleshoot with the Apple tech rep -- shows up as a shared device in Finder on my MacBook Pro, but when I click on it, I cannot establish a connection using "Connect As". So I've attempted to connect using the menu "Go/Connect to Server...", using both (alternately) the iMac's name and IP address, to no avail. I get a message which reads: "There was a problem connecting to the server 'Peter's iMac (8)'. This server may not exist or it is unavailable at this time. Check the server name or IP address, check your network connection, and then try again."
Here's what I know:
The server -- Peter's iMac (8) does exist;
The server -- Peter's iMac (8) is available at this time;
The server name -- Peter's iMac (8) -- is correct, as specified in the system sharing preferences;
The server IP address is correct, as specified in the system sharing preferences;
The network connection is active when I attempt to connect.
I'm convinced the problems stem directly from the OS X Yosemite update. None of this was ever remotely an issue in the previous OS X's -- any of them. This is maddening! What can be done? Apple?? Anyone???

I can't take my alias mail accounts online.

My iCloud account shows the alias accounts alright, but my Mail application shows the alii dimmed. Clicking in the drop down menu to take the accounts online gives no result. I want to use the accounts as I have in the past, but there is some problem! Don't know why.
iMac Mac OS 10.8.4

Hi pvonk. I am a longtime Mac client, so I do have the @mac.com and @me.com, along with the new icloud.dom. I have the possibility to create a third and final alias, but I haven't so far.
The dimmed appearance appeared in Inbox as one of the mail accounts. What is bothering me, though is the symbol similar to this one: ~ that appears in a circle next to the [email protected] or @icloud.com. When I click on that, it becomes highlighted and I get a popup window that gives me the following choices:
New Mailbox...
Export mailbox...
Erase deleted items...
Erase junk mail...
Synchronise [email protected]
Take [email protected] online
Edit [email protected]
Get account info
Every time I click to take the alias online, nothing happens. Maybe I don't need to?
Maybe my iPhone settings aren't synched with the iMac?

I can't take my Mail account online anymore on Mail App.

I'm using 10.9.5. Mac
Since 2 weeks ago I can't get all my email account online anymore on Mail App, even my iCloud email. I've done the instruction on Mail Connection Doctor to thick/unthick the SSL but it still doesn't work. Anyone?

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