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I have a mail account where the incoming mail server password is set, but the outgoing not. I can't remember why the password is not set on the outgoing mail server, but I would like to use it now + I would love to actually know the password, since I would love to continue using the mail account. I created and saved that password with the Keychain and then lost it due to data loss on iCloud Keychain (and they do not do backups).

No, I can't recover the password via the mail service provider.

Is there a way to recover it from Mail since it's set for the incoming mail server?!

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In nearly all configurations, the sending and receiving password are the same. If the incoming password shows as set in MacOS Mail, then it is in your keychain (because that is where those passwords are shown)

Go to "Keychain Access". tool in the Utilities folder of /Applications and click on "Passwords" in the left sidebar. This will show all of the stored passwords to you. You can search for the mail server hostname in the top right search bar to narrow down the choices. Once you see it, double click on it to open the details and click on the "Show Password" checkbox. Once you supply your login password, it will show you what that password is.

After that, it is a simple matter of adding that password into the Account settings within MacOS Mail.

Good Luck!

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  • No, it is not stored in Keychain anymore. As I said: Apple lost it (without admitting it or apologizing). The only place where it is "stored", is the password field for the incoming mail server.
    – needlol
    Nov 23, 2019 at 15:57
  • Oh lord... IT'S THERE... I just checked: I have two systems running. Mojave and Catalina.. in Mojave it never showed up and didn't show up when I just checked. In my 2nd partition which runs Catalina it did (I restored everything from the Mojave partition) which is strange since they both should be synced... Thanks for getting me to this point!
    – needlol
    Nov 23, 2019 at 16:07

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