Apr012011

How can I properly set up Mac Mail to send mail?

tracy reid asks:

I have Mail 4.5 on my new Mac. I can receive emails, but cant send emails. What is the proper way to set it up? My internet service provider is of no help.



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2 Answers -

0 votes

Anonymous

April 1, 2011

check your “Connection Security” setting; it should be either “STARTTLS” or “None”. If set to “SSL/TLS”, you’ll get the timeout. You should also ensure that your SMTP server is set to “smtp.me.com”

Mac OS X v10.5: Setting up Mail, troubleshooting Mail issues
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2954

A guide
http://www.wheresmywireless.com/macmailmacos10_3.html
http://www.onlinehowto.net/Tutorials/Apple-Mac-Mail/How-to-setup-configure-Apple-Mac-Mail/1109

0 votes

Mike

April 1, 2011

First of all you have to find out what settings your Email provider requires you to set.
- SMTP Port (e.g. 25, 465, 587…)
- SSL required/supported?
- SMTP auth required? (usually it’s either MD5 or plain/password)
- your Username and Password

Then in Mail go into Preferences > Accounts and at the very bottom there is the option to edit SMTP Settings:
1. select your SMTP Server (smtp.example.com)
2. click on Advanced
3. input the correct settings
4. when you are done click OK and close the Preferences
I recommend to actually quit Apple Mail (cmd + Q) before trying to send emails with the new settings.

Two important things:
New SMTP settings are not applied to Emails in your outgoing folder! You either have to move them to Drafts and resend or delete them.
Outgoing mails are processed in a linear fashion. This means if one email is stuck for whatever reason all subsequent emails will be too.