[ardent]

Recently, for no reason I can discover, Mail has refused to accept my password.
BT /Yahoo (who is my ISP) WILL accept it and I am currently reading/sending them via their website.
Changing my password does not persuade Mail to accept it but BT/Y is quite happy with the new password.

However, I wish to get back to using Mail which I have used for many years. I get the following message when I am asked to re-enter my password :- The btinternet.com POP server “mail.btinternet.com” rejected the password for user “peter finn”.

It will be understood that this is driving me mad! I have looked into keychains and the advice that Apple gives but cannot solve my problem.

I read somewhere that although Snow Leopard does not officially permit access to your passwords, there is a way to do this. This, I feel, would be the clue to the whole crazy business, and I would then know exactly what is being rejected.
Can anyone throw any light on this crazy problem?

[bastion]

ardent, on 09 December 2012 - 05:36 AM, said:

Recently, for no reason I can discover, Mail has refused to accept my password.
BT /Yahoo (who is my ISP) WILL accept it and I am currently reading/sending them via their website.
Changing my password does not persuade Mail to accept it but BT/Y is quite happy with the new password.

However, I wish to get back to using Mail which I have used for many years. I get the following message when I am asked to re-enter my password :- The btinternet.com POP server “mail.btinternet.com” rejected the password for user “peter finn”.

It will be understood that this is driving me mad! I have looked into keychains and the advice that Apple gives but cannot solve my problem.

I read somewhere that although Snow Leopard does not officially permit access to your passwords, there is a way to do this. This, I feel, would be the clue to the whole crazy business, and I would then know exactly what is being rejected.
Can anyone throw any light on this crazy problem?

Use the Keychain Access application; that's where the passwords are stored.

[purplette]

I've had the same problem three different times in the past year. ATT is aware of this problem, but has no solution for accounts using Apple mail. Just deleting mail passwords in Keychain didn't work.
The only thing I tried that worked is to delete my entire ATT account from Apple mail and start completely over.
Hope this works for you. Be warned. It will likely happen again.

[ardent]

bastion, on 09 December 2012 - 11:14 AM, said:

ardent, on 09 December 2012 - 05:36 AM, said:

Recently, for no reason I can discover, Mail has refused to accept my password.
BT /Yahoo (who is my ISP) WILL accept it and I am currently reading/sending them via their website.
Changing my password does not persuade Mail to accept it but BT/Y is quite happy with the new password.

However, I wish to get back to using Mail which I have used for many years. I get the following message when I am asked to re-enter my password :- The btinternet.com POP server “mail.btinternet.com” rejected the password for user “peter finn”.

It will be understood that this is driving me mad! I have looked into keychains and the advice that Apple gives but cannot solve my problem.

I read somewhere that although Snow Leopard does not officially permit access to your passwords, there is a way to do this. This, I feel, would be the clue to the whole crazy business, and I would then know exactly what is being rejected.
Can anyone throw any light on this crazy problem?

Use the Keychain Access application; that's where the passwords are stored.

[ardent]

Thanks, Bastion, but Keychains does not appear to help me even though I should be able to winkle out the password by following the Keychains Help instructions.

I am totally unable to get anywhere by going down this route, I wonder if anyone has actually tried AND SUCCEEDED in getting to a password by this method?!

I think I shall have to follow Purplette's advice (for which many thanks). At least this seems an easier method of getting back to square one, and sanity!

Thanks to you both, I will keep trying.

[bastion]

ardent, on 10 December 2012 - 08:08 AM, said:

Thanks, Bastion, but Keychains does not appear to help me even though I should be able to winkle out the password by following the Keychains Help instructions.

I am totally unable to get anywhere by going down this route, I wonder if anyone has actually tried AND SUCCEEDED in getting to a password by this method?!

I think I shall have to follow Purplette's advice (for which many thanks). At least this seems an easier method of getting back to square one, and sanity!

Thanks to you both, I will keep trying.

Deleting an account from Apple mail will delete all the locally-cached Mail associated with that account as well.

I'm not sure why you're not able to get anywhere with Keychain Access. I have tried, and succeeded in doing so multiple times over the last several years and OS versions. What's tripping you up?