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Why can't I send mail from my .Mac account?

Today I tried to use Mail to send an e-mail to someone. Everything looked fine until I got an alert saying CANNOT SEND MESSAGE USING THE SERVER SMTP.MAC.COM. I have the option to choose another server, however, the drop-box does not have my account as one of the options. What the heck?


Dave's Answer:

Fortunately, this problem is very easy to solve, though, to be honest, I don't have a ".mac" account, so I had to ask someone who did -- Josh St. Germain -- and he was kind enough to track down your likely problem and offer up a solution that's not too hard to implement.

Josh, take it away!

Okay, Dave, first off, the person who emailed in the question needs to click the "Edit Message" option. Next, at the top-left of the screen, click the "Mail" dropdown. Click "Preferences" and a window will pop up, like this:

Mac OS X: Apple Mail: Preferences / Settings: Composing

In this window, click on the "Composing" tab to make sure you're in the same place I am here, then, under the "Addressing" section, there will be a dropbox with "Send New Mail From:" next to it. You should be able to successfully select your account in the drop menu.

It looks like this:

Mac OS X: Apple Mail: Preferences / Settings: Composing: Pic 2

After you have selected your mailbox, you can click the red "X" in the top-left of the window and you are ready to re-send your email. Fixed!

Happy Messaging!


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Reader Comments To Date: 3

roxy said, on September 21, 2010 6:49 AM:

ok ive done all this ,still cant send my mail , a box keeps popping up wanting my mac mail pw .i dont have a mac mail account . i have went to pref anddeleted all accounts cept the one im using . can u help me plsssss.tysm

Cathy Apple said, on January 11, 2011 10:46 AM:

I understand what Josh is saying to do, however, I can't find the "edit message" option that he wants me to click on. Where is it?

Thanks,
Cathy

Darryl said, on April 16, 2013 9:36 PM:

It's not that Mail doesn't have an outgoing mail server address to send from. It's that Mac Mail has a bug in it since an upgrade. No one can tell me how to fix the bug, and I cannot upgrade any further versions of Mail.

Starbucks coffee cup I do have a lot to say, and questions of my own for that matter, but first I'd like to say thank you, Dave, for all your helpful information by buying you a cup of coffee!

I do have a comment, now that you mention it!











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