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My mail account (OS X Lion) refuses to send email. It receives mail fine and I have checked and rechecked all the settings etc. My iPhone and iPad send and receive mail with no problems, using the same settings, the same network, and the same accounts.

Any ideas why this is happening?

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What kind of account is it? IMAP, POP, Exchange, Gmail, Yahoo...? – Loïc Wolff Sep 29 '11 at 12:45
You can try with "Window" -> "Connection Doctor" to see it it reports any errors. What do you mean by "refuses"? Do you get an error? Which one? – Matteo Sep 29 '11 at 13:07
Try to run the BuiltIn Mail's.app Diagnostics, I'm pretty sure they will help you, Its under menu: Window->Connection doctor – jmserra Sep 29 '11 at 13:09
Having the same issue. Connection Dr shows no errors. Tried sending via web mail and it works fine. Checked SMTP settings and they are correct. I am having this issue on all 6 of my email accounts. – user11693 Oct 6 '11 at 20:01
Did you ever solve this? – bmike♦ Nov 12 '12 at 14:38

3 Answers

up vote 2 down vote

My grandmother's computer had the same issue. After trying a bunch of stuff, I ended up deleting the IMAP account and re-added it and everything works fine now.

As commented, you could also use the connection doctor (search for it in help if you can't find it under the menu structure for Mail) and see that all of the servers and passwords are set up correctly. Often an old setting can go stale or the preference file could get corrupt and need a new password to be stored for the sending side of email.

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up vote 1 down vote

Compare your outgoing server settings (SMTP, not IMAP) to those on your iOS devices. I'd imagine that's where your problems lies. Dig into the 'advanced' section and make sure you're using the correct authentication type, port, etc.

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up vote 1 down vote

I have the same problem, tried most of the suggestions, to no avail, still couldn't use Mail to send out. Downloaded Thunderbird, by Mozilla instead. Works a treat, same address, and has even hooked up with my address book, and to be honest looks a whole lot better.

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protected by bmike♦ Nov 12 '12 at 14:36

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