Mail: Unable to verify account name or password

Question

Mail: Unable to verify account name or password

So this seems to be an old issue that has now affected me too and so far nobody seems to have either an explanation or solution for it. But maybe I've missed something so I'll try my luck. Here's the issue:

I have been using an Outlook live.com mail account on my Mac (in Apple Mail) and my iOS devices for many years and it has always worked just fine. Then about three months ago I noticed that the account was inactive (the little squiggle in a circle next to it). I tried to set it active again and got a password prompt but when I entered the password it said "Unable to verify account name or password." in red letters. Ever since then I have been unable to re-activate and use it.

Here's what I have tried:

deleted the account and set it up again
set a new password
set a new password without special characters
deleted Mail caches
deleted Mail plist files
entered the password directly in Keychain
entered the password directly in Internet Accounts
de-activated 2FA in outlook.com
set up a new user on my Mac
updated the Mac to Sequoia

Well, suffice it to say that nothing has made a difference. How is this happening to so many users randomly out of the blue and why? And how is there still no solution for it? Or is there?!?

This can't be just a Microsoft issue because not only does the account work just fine on my iOS devices but I have also read users having the exact same problem with mail accounts from other providers. So it is definitely a MacOS issue.

Oh, and to make matters worse I started a new job a few days ago and they set me up with an Exchange account -- which I was able to add on my iPhone and iPad just fine. But when I tried to do the same in Apple Mail on my Mac ... "Unable to verify account name or password"! :(

To make a long story short: are there any new infos on this subject? Has someone figured out what is going on and how to fix it? Thanks in advance.

:: M ::

Mac mini

Posted on Oct 11, 2024 12:59 PM

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Answer 1

shar00

Level 1

12 points

Oct 11, 2024 6:23 PM in response to Stevan Milesevic

The exact same thing has been plaguing me on my Macbook but only for one Microsoft account. My other one works fine. Surely there must be a fix for this? I've tried the quitting/restarting/deleting/re-adding sequence and it doesn't work.

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Answer 2

shar00

Level 1

12 points

Oct 11, 2024 6:56 PM in response to shar00

I finally realized that when I thought I deleted the account, it was still coming up as an option in the account list. When I didn't use that name but started as a new MS Exchange account, it worked for me.

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Answer 3

Oct 12, 2024 3:30 AM in response to shar00

"When I didn't use that name but started as a new MS Exchange account, it worked for me."

I'm not sure what you mean by "that name" but as described in the second part of my problem I am also trying to add a completely new Exchange account and still running into the same problem as with the old Outlook account.

Apple has to be aware of that issue by now and yet there seems to be no real explanation, let alone a solution.

What is Apple Mail on the Mac doing differently from Apple Mail on iOS? Or from Thunderbird or Outlook or other apps? This is driving me nuts.

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Answer 4

shar00

Level 1

12 points

Oct 12, 2024 2:34 PM in response to Stevan Milesevic

Sorry for the vagueness, but what I was trying to say was that I don't think the account was really deleted for me the first time, because even though I went through the delete account process, the account name still showed up in a list of options for add account. Previously I had been choosing the account from the list, and when I did not do that, it seemed to work. But I also quit mail, restarted my computer, relaunched mail. I'm sure you already did that, but my suspicion from my own experience is that maybe when you delete the account so that you can reset it, it isn't completely deleted. This is only my experience on macOS, not iOS.

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Answer 5

Oct 12, 2024 3:50 PM in response to shar00

I see, thanks for clearing that up. But while that might be the case for my regular old live.com account -- and I will look once again for any trace of that I can find -- I still fail to understand why I am having the exact same issue with the new Exchange account that I hadn't even used before but I am trying to add now.

And of course I know that you cannot offer any solution to that, I just had to get to off my chest once again. It just boggles my mind that there seems to be no real explanation or solution to this whole mess.

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Answer 6

Oct 13, 2024 12:56 AM in response to Stevan Milesevic

I am having periodic problems with multiple email accounts on Mac and iOS since the last updates. The problems are mostly with an IMAP account--continuously unable to connect, asks for password and then says cannot verify. Oddly enough, overnight it connected once and downloaded some mail, but could not connect again this morning. Also had a problem sending with a gmail account--it did not choose the correct server. This is a real mess.

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