Mail is constantly asking for my password.

I enter the password and tell keychain to remember it, but an hour, 2 hours, 3 hours, later mail is asking for the password again. The program has worked for a number of years without problem. Then a couple of months ago this started. It is happening on all three of my systems. Anyone have any ideas?

Open Keychain Access /Applications/Utilities
Select Passwords on the left.
Delete your mail password.
Open the Mail app. From the menu bar click Mail / Preferences then select the Accounts tab then select the Account Information tab.
Type in your password. You should be prompted to save that to a new keychain. Click Yes when promppted.
If that doesn't help, go to the Keychain Access menu bar then click Keychain First Aid.
Click Verify then click Repair if necessary.
Try adding the password again in the Mail / Accounts Information pane.

Similar Messages

Mail still constantly asks for Gmail password

I have been unable to use Mail for over a year now due to the fact that no matter what I do it asks me for my Gmail password every two minutes. I thought I would give it a try after upgrading to Yosemite Beta and I see it is still the same situation. Hard to believe that after YEARS of this known issue there is still no fix. Mail is unusable in this state and it forces me to us ***whisper*** Outlook ***gag***.
At least on Mavericks I could use Google Chat in Messages but that functionality is broken now in Yosemite.
I have deleted every Google related item in my keychain, deleted and reinstalled the account, said really nice things to my mac and it still won't cooperate. Now when I try to add the account In Yosemite it will only connect with Contacts and Calendar and can't even make the connection with Mail, Messages or Notes.
Strange because my Google Drive sync works just fine!
Anyone know a solution for this or are we going to wait a few more years for this remain unfixed?
Any help you can provide would be great. I would love to use Mail someday!

Hi,
It does work.
What I did find out from another thread is that it has to be Set at Google to be a "Less Secure" App despite it using SSL.
As has been said two step verification can seem to get in the way.
On the Google page for this.
Allowing less secure apps to access your account
Google may block sign in attempts from some apps or devices that do not use modern security standards. Since these apps and devices are easier to break into, blocking them helps keep your account safer.
Some examples of apps that do not support the latest security standards include:
The Mail app on your iPhone or iPad with iOS 6 or below
The Mail app on your Windows phone preceding the 8.1 release
Some Desktop mail clients like Microsoft Outlook and Mozilla Thunderbird
You need to start here https://www.google.com/settings/security/lesssecureapps?hl=en
(Messages is one that they deem a Less Secure app but what "security" they are using is not clear.)
7:52 pm Friday; September 26, 2014
 iMac 2.5Ghz i5 2011 (Mavericks 10.9)
 G4/1GhzDual MDD (Leopard 10.5.8)
 MacBookPro 2Gb (Snow Leopard 10.6.8)
 Mac OS X (10.6.8),
 Couple of iPhones and an iPad

My Mac Mail constantly asks for our passwords before opening our accounts. New iMac with OSX Maverick

My Mac Mail constantly asks for our passwords before opening our accounts. New iMac with OS x Maverick. We get messages such as " Mail can't connect. Appears to be offline due to network problems." or "The connection to the server (null) in port ) timed out." I have confirmed server connections OK with Cox Communication and our Cox Webmail accounts.

Hi Bob13524,
Man, that definitely sounds frustrating! And it sounds like this issue is occurring with several accounts, so let’s see if we can troubleshoot this. The following resource provides some great information for troubleshooting Mail issues, including information on using the Connection Doctor:
OS X Mail: Troubleshooting sending and receiving email messages - Apple Support
http://support.apple.com/en-us/TS3276
Thanks,
Matt M.

A definitive solution to stop Mail constantly asking for my password??

I have Snow Leopard running on Intel iMac.
Like so many others my Mac Mail keeps on asking for my password even though its saved on my keychain.
I have read pretty every solution I can find find from Keychain repair to deleting and creating a new account.... No joy... problem still occurs a few times a day on both my Hotmail pop and Gmail pop.....
I wanted to know if there is a definitive solution to this problem... is there a software release for this or an ABSOLUTE .... PROVEN TO FIX ALL OCCURRENCES SOLUTION.... that works for everyone.??
If not then I suppose I must use a different email client
Thanks for your replies

Dodgy servers being likely... is that going to happen with both Gmail and Hotmail?
Doesn't happen with my GMail account. I'm connecting to GMail via IMAP, what about you? As to Hotmail, that one's notorious for having trouble with Mail.
As to the fact that you don't see the problem with Entourage, it could be that there's something wrong with your Mail setup, but I don't know what might be different about how Entourage communicates with the server. I'm sure Ernie might have some insights.
In the "Preferences" "Accounts" "Account Information" I put in my password and then save on exiting... as far as I am concerned it is saved within the software. But whenever this issue occurs, the saved password has vanished.
It's actually stored in the Keychain, which could be one source of problems. If your keychain is damaged, it would cause problems for Mail but probably not Entourage. Try opening Keychain Access and choose Keychain Access -> Keychain First Aid. Also, try deleting the account passwords in the keychain completely, then enter the password when Mail prompts for it and check the box to save it in the keychain.
Why would a "troublesome server from a location with bad internet service" delete the password I have saved on an Apple software product...
If you get a password prompt, and you try to enter the password but it gets rejected due to some difficulty communicating with the server, Mail might decide to remove the "incorrect" password. That's just theory, as I've never actually done that. On the rare occasion that I get a password prompt, I just hit cancel, wait a little while and take the account online again. Typically, unless the server is still having difficulty, mail is retrieved without the need to re-enter the password.

My mothers iPod dosent show her primary mail acct and asks for a password for that acct and when i click on the one that shows its her other acct and it asks for the password for the primary acct and then refuses the password can someone help?

My mothers iPod dosent show her primary mail acct and asks for a password for her primary mail acct and shows her secondary acct without any label and password please help tried everything do i need to delete both accts and start over????

also the secondary acct does not show up on mailboxes just #of e-mails something is not right with this iPod should we delete the mailing accts and redo them or...... please help my mother almost threw the iPod overboard on her last overseas trip and ive tried everythin i know to do so help help help

After installing Mt. Lion, Mail no longer asks for a password, even though I set preference for using a password.

After installing Mt. Lion 10.8.2, Mail no longer asks for a password before opening messages, even though I tried to set preferences for using the password. Help!

In Mail Preferences, Accounts item: I tried to delete the password (but that did not save). I got this idea from some Mail Help item that I cannot seem to find again. I cannot recall how I did it in Snow Leopard, but I had it set to ask for a password that was used solely for Mail. It would not download anything until I entered that password. Note: I am not on a network; just the single user of the MacPro. Thank you for any guidance you might be able to offer.

My ipad mini is not usable because it constantly asks for iCloud password. It also will not connect to network. Does anyone have any suggestions?

My son's ipad mini has become not usable because it asks for constantly asks for iCloud password. It says that it is not the correct password and the screen reappears. I know the password is correct because I can login to the website via another PC.
Part of the issue is that it appears not be connected to the network. It appears to be trying to then gets interuptted by the iCloud password request.
I tried to restore from iTunes when connected to PC, however, it says it cannot do this because Find My Phone has been activated on the ipad. To deactiviate I need to turn it off on the ipad which required my iCloud password (seems I am in a catch 22).
Any suggestions on how to proceed?
Thanks.

Hopefully this will me get you back up.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1212

Here's a simple fix for Mail constantly asking for account password

This one was driving me nuts, but now I have a fix...I think. Open up Keychain Access in Utiliites. Double click the entry in the login keychain, then check "Show Password." Give your login password and hit the "Allow" button. After the pword is shown, just close the box. That's it. No more need to redo all the pwords in Mail and Keychain. Works for me. Mail seems to need some hand holding from time to time.

My e-mail provider is Verizon. If I'm being asked for the password for the main account, I double-click on this in the login keychain shown below. But since I'm using Snow Leopard, this might appear differently for you, although I doubt it.

IOs 8.1 Mail app keeps asking for iCloud password

Since the update to iOs 8.1 i have a problem with my mailbox.
Every time i want to create a new mail, it asks me for my iCloud password.
This happens on my iPhone (6) and iPad (Air) while im in my iCloud inbox, Gmail inbox, or just the general overview.
Whenever i press the create new mail icon it will ask for my iCloud password.
- When i give the iCloud password (correct one) it wont ask for it again in the next 15 mins
- When i dont give the iCloud password (cancel) i can just send mails but it will ask for the password whenever i create a new mail.
What i did:
- Remove iCloud account > reboot > Add iCloud account > didnt solve the problem
- Remove Keychain > didnt solve the problem
- Remove iCloud photo's > didnt solve the problem
- Remove iCloud mail > still asks for the iCloud password.
- Remove iCloud > solves the problem but i dont want to remove iCloud
- Disabled all iCloud options, (mail, contacts, etc) > didnt solve the problem
- Disabled 2 step verification > didnt solve the problem
Everytime i want to create a new mail, u see the phone/pad use the "syncing icon" 3x 5 seconds, maybe a link here?
Anyone else with any ideas that i can try?

That's interesting that it didn't start to happen after a while on your work iPad. I just tried my iPad this evening and I'm getting the same iCloud password popup message when I try to create a new mail or enable "Contacts Only' in Airdrop.
I still think it's a problem with our iCloud accounts. Some flag in the system isn't set or something for some reason. I don't even have mail switched on in my iCloud account so there is no valid reason why Mail.app would try and authenticate to iCloud just because we create a new email.
Signing out of iCloud fixes the issue for me (not that it's a valid long term solution) so that points the finger directly at a setting on my server side iCloud account I think.

Mac Mail no longer asks for a password when opening gmail

Hello all,
When I try and open my email account the password box no longer pops up.Don't know what happened.I use gmail and it always worked fine.Can anyone help me with this?Thank you very much.All reponses are apreciated.

In Mail Preferences, Accounts item: I tried to delete the password (but that did not save). I got this idea from some Mail Help item that I cannot seem to find again. I cannot recall how I did it in Snow Leopard, but I had it set to ask for a password that was used solely for Mail. It would not download anything until I entered that password. Note: I am not on a network; just the single user of the MacPro. Thank you for any guidance you might be able to offer.

I can't get into my mail without being asked for my password and its stored in keychain and not having trouble on any other device except my macbook

I have been having trouble signing on for several days to my email accounts. Everytime it asks for my password and the keychain box pops up. I retype it and it returns. I even went under mail preferences and changed it and it will not let me on. I have an iPad and an iPhone and can access it that way (so I know the password is correct) but not on macbook. Any help would be appreciated.

David:
Welcome to Apple Discussions.
+I set up an access code to the hard drive in order block the other user's access...+
Can you explain exactly what you did? That may help explain your situation.
When you try to boot normally, explain exactly what happens.
Have you tried starting up in Safe Mode?
Please post back with updated information.
Good luck.
cornelius

Mail app keep asking for hotmail password

Hi everyone,
I have two Hotmail,Gmail and other email service providers setup in my Mail app
the problem is only with the Hotmail accounts
The Mail program keep asking continuously - once in awhile - to type the password for the Hotmail email although the password is saved and it is there in the Keychain Access
I tried to create a new keychain in the Keychain Access and moved the passwords there ---> it didn't work after some days it asked me and then it's keep going.
right now when the mail asks for the password I close the program and then reopen it again after doing that It wont ask me for the password till some time - it happens daily -
I read that the problem is from Microsoft server but how it can be where is the iPhone mail works great without asking for Hotmail password
I also checked out Thunderbird app and guess what it worked , it didn't ask me for the Hotmail password !!!
I wonder if anyone managed to get it works fine
Thanks

I wonder why Thunderbird app is working without the issue that happens to the Mail program
do you think Thunderbird is working great since it's using its own Keychain or database to store the emails password where as the Mail app is using the Keychain Access that comes with the Mac OS X ?
I don't know. However Hotmail does have some weird non-standard access protocol. (Well, it's probably a standard, but I don't know any other mail provider using such a protocol.) It's probably just some tweak that Thunderbird and others have done to force Hotmail to work with their program, but I really don't have any idea. Other people tell me their apps work so it's just seems to be something between Hotmail and OSX Mail.
Other than OSX Mail, I mostly use Outlook on Windows and Mac. They do not tell us much either since those being Microsoft products like Hotmail, it would be embarrasing for Microsoft not to make their products work well together.

As of Friday Night, Apple MAIL (in Tiger) asks for imap password? Why?

As of Friday night, when accessing my email (via AOl's imap server enabled through Tiger's 10.4.8 Mail, I can no longer get my new mail. I changed no settings on the computers (this began occurring on two of my Macs--a 15-inch G4 Titanium PB 867 and a Dual 1 GHZ Quicksilver) within the Apple Mail apps. I just started getting this weird alert/dialog box saying "unable to recognize your 'imap' password, please re-enter"--which I then did--to no avail. I could not get any new mail.
Now, on my other Mac, a G4 Upgraded B&W G3 running Panther, the mail runs fine. I can see my new mail--which I tested by sending a message from the "Tiger" computers to myself. The message would be sent--I could hear the "whoosh"--but not show up in the Tiger mailboxes. Of course--got in the Panther 10.3.9 Mail In-box no sweat!
Rebuilt permissions on both machines, still no change. The e-mail works fine when I access it via the web (through AOL), but I just can't figure out what happened since Friday night? Is AOL having IMAP server trouble? I just dunno. All I do know is that my mail is now broken under Tiger and I now have to go through more hoops to get my mail--the extra webmail shenanigans are a kludge, and having an Airport card in the PB is sort of negated a lot having to do teh whole webmail access when it worked so well before just hitting my "Mail" icon.
I've checked the forums and seen nothing mentioned about any "problems" since last night, sooooo, I guess maybe it's ME...but, on both computers? Weird.
Any help wopuld be greatly appreciated.
Thanks much,
Yusuf Lamont

OK, I just want to make clear that Mail is asking for the Keychain password over and over again, periodically, while Mail is open. It does not ask for the passwords to individual accounts. There is no problem logging into any of the three email accounts I have activated. The normal behavior of Mail is to ask for the Keychain password once upon launch. What it does now, is continue to ask for the Keychain password periodically - perhaps every fifteen minutes, or so.
I have tried:
Running Keychain Repair. It did find problems, repaired them, but this did not resolve the issue.
Disabled accounts one at a time, hoping to isolate the problem to one account - no luck. Then I disabled all at once. Mail continued asking for Keychain password, even though all accounts were disabled.
Deleted Keychain Items associated with these e-mail accounts, and re-created them. This did not resolve the issue.
Cursing Mail each time it asked for, and I had to re-enter, the Keychain password. This, also, did not resolve the issue.
I can't see anything in the Console associated with Mail. What would cause Mail to ask for the main password after it's already been entered? It seems to me that if the problem were coming from a server, it should cease once the account's been disabled. If it were a Keychain issue, I would expect to have problems with other apps. Obviously, it's not a problem with the Keychain Items themselves since they were deleted and re-created. That leads me to think the problem is with Mail. But, I've been wrong before....

Constantly Asked for Keychain Password

I am being constantly asked for my keychain password whenever opening an application that accesses it. I don't know why the permission needs to be given each time. What can I do?
This is really part two of a problem I mentioned earlier (the first part has been taken care of).

There was no "Admin" keychain, but yes I am logged in as the admin. There were, for some reason, two "System keychains." I went into my matthewmcvickar/Library/Keychains folder and deleted login.keychain (huh?) and matthewmcvickar.keychain (the old one) and the extra System keychain disappeared. Then I deleted this latest keychain and created another one.
Still being asked for the password... the password I created for this one is the same as the current password for my account (the admin account).
What's the problem?

Outlook 2011 on MAC constantly asks for exchange password

Hi All,
i've gone through posts related to the topic but have not been able to figure out a related response that i can understand.
i'm running outlook 2011 on macbook air / OS Mavericks 9.4.
When i put in my exchange server settings, it connects, prompts asking to allow auto discover settings. i click yes, it downloads emails then abruptly asks for username and password non-stop. If i click cancel then outlook disconnects.
My company is running a hosted exchange server (2010) on something called "rackspace". My IT admin is not provided access to the server itself but rather to a limited control panel which is primarily of no use. He accessed my profile
with this control panel and downloaded outlook 2011 under my profile along with profile configuration tool on rackspace. Nothing seems to work.
When the IT admin chatted with the guys at rackspace, they had no clue what was causing the problem.
i have now installed windows 8.1 pro and outlook 2013 on the MAC via VMWARE virtual machine. Outlook does work, asks for the password a few times during the day but after entering credentials multiple times - continues to work.
I'm now desperate to figure out how to get outlook 2011 / exchange emails to work on the MAC.
Hope someone can help me arrive at a solution.
Thanks in advance.
kind Regards
Azhar

Hi,
According to your description, your account works properl on Outlook for Windows but prompt credentials on Outlook for MAC. If I misundertand your meaning, please feel free to let me know.
If yes, I recomemnd you try to access your account on other Outlook for Mac client or check if other Outlook for Mac users come across the same issue. If yes, I recommend you contact with your admin and check if there is something wrong with your EWS virtual
directory. Because, Outlook for MAC will contact the EWS virtual directly, which is different from the Outlook for Windows clients.
If you have any question, please feel free to let me know.
Thanks,
Angela Shi
TechNet Community Support

Mail is constantly asking for my password.

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