[Macworld.com]

Last week I mentioned AOL's Open Mail Access -- a system that finally allows you to send and receive AOL email without using the AOL application. Today I have more information on the limitations of this less-than-open system courtesy of former MacUser editor, Jim Akin. Mr. Akin explains: [more]

[AdamKB]

AOL redirects all outgoing port 25 connections to an SMTP proxy that is heavily rate-limited and somewhat unreliable. As you point out, it can be quite slow...and it is also blocked by many providers.
So you actually didn't connect to smtp.aol.com if you were dialed into AOL at the time, just as you didn't actually connect other ISPs' SMTP servers.
smtp.aol.com requires authentication on port 25 too. It just becomes moot because you're redirected first.
I first documented this issue at http://journals.aol....log/entries/115. More information about AOL's SMTP proxy can be found at http://members.aol.c...#3rd-party-acct.

[richfbrown]

I set up Mail for my AOL account as was described, and did not have trouble sending email from Mail using smtp.aol.com with the server port set to 587. Authentication is set to Password and the Use Secure Sockets Layer is not checked.
Did I just get lucky?
Rich Brown

[smokedoyster]

AOL now works with Mac Mail.
AOL seems to have fixed that SMTP bug within the past day or so. A few days ago, I could not send mail from Mail as described in this thread. Today, I tried and it worked fine. Looks like I'll keep AOL for a bit longer!
My settings:
1. Go to Mail > Preferences.
2. Click Accounts and select your newly created AOL account.
3. Click the Outgoing Mail Server (SMTP): "Server Settings..." button.
Outgoing Mail Server: smtp.aol.com
Server port: 587
Use Secure Sockets Layer (SSL): off
Authentication: Password
User Name: <my AOL username, without the @aol>
Password: <my AOL password>

[Chris Breen]

Still doesn't work for me. When I attempt to send via smtp.aol.com from within Mail I receive a message that my password was rejected by the server. Works fine with Entourage.
Chris

[fvollman]

I called Mac support 2 days ago about this problem and they said that the problem was a known one and that it was affecting not only Macs, but Windoze as well. He said that they were working on a fix. Since that point I've noticed periodic outages (yesterday) but today I've had no problem in sending email using Mail. Compatibility between AOL and my Mail program is really becoming necessary... especially after having had a "taste" of it while it is(was?) up and working. AOL needs to re-think their supposed "non-support"... might cost them a few customers.

[Nobody]

My experience is that sometimes sending mail (using the mail.app) through smtp.aol.com works, sometimes it doesn't. This morning it was working. 1 minute ago I got "The SMTP server smtp.aol.com rejected the password for user..."
Maybe AOL is "testing"?

[Nobody]

Yeah, well, 45 minutes later and it DOES work again. We'll see what happens in an hour...

[Chris Breen]

Yup, now it's working for me. There's hope yet!
Chris

[macswest]

> AOL now works with Mac Mail.
Yes! Those settings work for me, too, even when I'm connected through my Cox Cable broadband account.
Now if I could just get my dot Mac account to work the same way. I have never been able to get smtp.mac.com to work with Mail. I always use the smtp setting for whatever ISP I am using to connect to the Internet. Then, of course, it works fine. But it's inconvenient to have to remember to go into the Mail Pref's and change that setting whenever my PowerBook and I change locations.
My settings (the ones that DON'T work):
Outgoing Mail Server: smtp.mac.com
Server port: 25
Use Secure Sockets Layer (SSL): off
Authentication: Password
User Name: <my dot Mac username, without the @mac.com>
Password: <my dot Mac password>
I have also tried it with SSL turned on, which didn't work either.
Any suggestions would be very welcome. Is the Server port the problem? I could never find any directions at Apple that said to change to a port other than 25 for dot Mac accounts.
Btw, I was REALLY glad to find this article and thread on AOL and Mail. I don't normally use AOL, but I'm scheduled to teach a class on setting up Mail for AOL accounts for my MUG in a few weeks. (When I agreed to teach the class I thought, "I know Mail. How hard could it be? Just fill in the blanks." Uh huh.)

[wow]

What this does is allow you (or in my case, your users) to leave AOL easily - it's a nearly painless escape path.
They should set up an AOL IMAP account, along with a regular IMAP account with someone else. All of their incoming AOL mail will be in their new AOL IMAP account folder, and all of their outgoing mail will be in their 'sent mail' folder. In a few months all of their addresses and emails will be in their IMAP accounts, and there will no longer be any reason for them to keep AOL. They can leave AOL whenever they want without even thinking twice!
This is exactly what several of my customers have been waiting for!

[Nobody]

There seems to be a small problem with aol IMAP account that no one has mentioned yet, or hopefully I'm just missing something. Specifically, what you see in the INBOX only reflects what is on the IMAP server, and it does not save files locally, so when AOL decides to clear out your "Old Mail" folder, thats it, the messages are gone forever! I've searched up and down in Apple's Mail.app and Microsoft Entourage for some way to save my mail locally so that it doesn't disappear when the AOL system clears the files off its server, but so far, no dice.
I have a friend who I email once approximately every 2 weeks. When I looked in my Inbox in Apple Mail for her message from 10 days ago (that had been there Friday), it had disappeared! Sure enough, when I logged onto AOL (for the first time in over a week), the "Old Mail" folder matched exactly what was in my MAIL inbox. I guess AOL cleans this out on the 1st of the month or something. Its unfortunate that you can't have an IMAP account behave the same way as a POP account and save messages locally. Or can you?
Any Ideas?

[gyroscope4]

i don't use aol (ha!), but i do have an imap account and save my mail locally. in mail, in the mailbox menu, select "New..." to create a new folder. in the Location popup menu, choose "On My Mac" rather than the name of the imap account. tadaaa, local folder for saving mail locally. once messages are in there, they aren't stored on the imap server anymore, and aol is Powerless to delete them!

[Nobody]

Thanks for the help! Of course this does work, but it is not automatic.
I was hoping there would be a way for the imap mail to be saved locally automatically. I check my mail on 3 different computers, and I check multiple accounts, so I have to remember to drag the mail I want to save to the appropriate folder (I have a separate 'save' folder for each account) on each computer, each time I check it. Not to mention the same thing if I want to keep a copy of sent messages. Also, I now have upwards of 20 different folders in my mailbox sidebar.
Basically this whole procedure is about exactly as cumbersome as my old way of signing on to AOL, checking mail, deleting junk, and then marking as new those mails I wanted to be able to access on another computer. Its nice to not have to use the AOL interface, but I'm not really saving any time. Oh poor me.