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Apple Mail Offline SMTP Gmail Outgoing Mail Account

By: Kelly Heffner Wilkerson
March 30, 2021 at 10:00 AM

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I originally wrote this post when I helped a friend with her outgoing email in Apple Mail. Her outgoing email account (SMTP server) for a Gmail based email account kept appearing "Offline" right after she set it up. Even adding the SMTP server manually in Mail didn't help.

Update March 30, 2021, How to confirm your Gmail accounts in Apple Mail

Here's a great suggestion for what worked from a commenter. (Thanks Colin!) I would suggest trying this first before the steps to delete and re-add the Gmail account below.

Click the Apple menu (upper left corner of your screen) > System Preferences > Internet Accounts.
Click on each of your Gmail based accounts and see if you're told to open a browser and confirm your password.
Incoming mail should refresh at this point, but outgoing SMTP may still show up offline. If your SMTP server is still showing offline, close and reopen Mail.

How to remove and setup your Gmail account in Apple Mail

You shouldn’t need to do any of the custom SMTP setup within Mail to get a Gmail based email account working in macOS. Now Gmail accounts should be setup just through "Internet Accounts" in the System Preferences, and the SMTP will be setup automatically.

Removing the account and setting it up again should take care of the issue.

If your SMTP server / Outgoing Mail Account constantly appears "Offline", here's how to fix it:

Close Mail if it's open now.
Click the Apple menu (upper left corner of your screen) > System Preferences > Internet Accounts.
Select the account with the broken outgoing mail server, and then click the minus sign at the bottom.
Reboot your Mac.
Click the Apple menu > System Preferences > Internet Accounts.
Click Google, and sign into your Gmail based account again.

Update February 26, 2018:

If you're email is still not working after this, in Mail open the Mail menu > Preferences > Accounts and select your Gmail account. Ensure that the little checkbox for Enable this account is checked.

Write A Comment

Flyboy
June 6, 2022
Wow! You are a life saver!!! I wasted an entire day trying EVERYTHING to fix my suddenly 'offline' gmail accounts (which happened spontaneously for no known reason) NOTHING worked until I found this.
I see what Dr Jacobson said (below) and he is of course, quite correct but these updates to OSs and Apps means we will never be free of these glitches and workarounds will always be necessary. But I would not have hit upon this one in a million years. THANK YOU and well done!!!
- Kelly HW
  June 6, 2022
  Thank you for the kind words; glad you're up and running!
Steve Zivolich
May 5, 2021
Kelly, thanks for your email solutions related to problems after a mac software update. Your explanation on how to delete and re add accounts was well explained and it worked! Keep up the good work!
- Kelly HW
  May 5, 2021
  Thanks for the kind words, Steve!
Christopher Valadez
April 4, 2021
I was able to "fix" my issue. As others stated, the Outgoing SMTP server on Gmail account kept coming back as offline. I am running a 27" iMac with Mac OS 11.2.3. Incoming messages and all other folders operated as normal. Internet Accounts in System Pref pane showed no other details on Google account than Name and email. I have Two Factor Auth turned on. No changes to note. Steps I took are below
1. Quit Apple Mail
2. Change Google Password in Safari and allow keychain to update.
3. Open System Pref pane and open Internet Accounts. Ensure the account is enabled.
4. Launch Apple Mail.
5. Go to Mail>Preferences>Select appropriate account>Server Settings>Outgoing Mail Server>Select Edit SMTP Server List..
6. In the Server Settings of the affected account, I disabled "automatically manage connection settings". Ensured the correct port was entered and selected "Password" from the authentication menu.
7. Quit Apple Mail
8. Reboot Mac
My hope is that this bypasses the two factor auth pass off between Safari to Mail and just uses the stored password on the SMTP server list. I cannot validate this is the function that completely fixed my issue but after 3 days of failed attempts this corrected my issue. On occasion the "offline" server still shows its face to which I select the "online" option, but I will locate that line in com.mail preferences to delete that memory and report back.
Cheers.
Colin Holgate
March 3, 2021
Found my way here while looking for a solution to the same problem. Nothing listed so far was helping, but I did find a new solution that is easier.
Nothing I did in Mail was helping, but when I went to System Preferences, Internet Accounts, as soon as I clicked on each of the Gmail based accounts I was told I needed to open a browser to confirm my password. Safari had remembered my passwords, so that didn't take long. After confirming the passwords, all my missing email from today showed up in Mail. But, in Mail, Preferences, Accounts, the two accounts still showed as offline. Closing and reopening Mail fixed that.
Bamsh Digital Marketing
February 2, 2021
THANK YOU! Worked for me.
1. Close Mail
2. Open internet accounts as mentioned above
3. Click on the account.
Mine then asked me to verify the login details - and everything started to work
Thanks again!
Martyn
Bamsh Digital Marketing Bristol
Reuben Hotzenplotz
January 1, 2021
Hi, we have a similar problem. Went through all the steps that you so kindly detailed, including deleting the account, deleting google.oa from the keychain. Currently, we have no account in macos mail. When trying to add a Google account, we are referred to the browser, but before the browser even opens we get the dreaded "Failed to authenticate with Google" popup. Safari is our default browser. We can access gmail from this computer in Safari. We can also add the gmail account to macos mail on a different apple laptop. But not on this one (Catalina 10.15.5). Oh, and while we cannot add a gmail account on this apple laptop, we can add an exchange account (this is how desperate we are, we tried everything we could think of). Any ideas of what we could try next?
- Kelly HW
  January 1, 2021
  Hi Ruben,
  I started doing a little reading on the "Failed to authenticate with Google" popup. I don't have an answer yet (beyond the items it sounds like you've tried) but I have some questions and ideas to poke at a few new avenues.
  Open Safari and from the Safari menu select Preferences. Then click the General tab. What does it say next to "Safari Opens With"? (The default is "A new window".) Since the mail account popup uses a private window, I want to check to see if using other private windows in your usual Safari is causing some unexpected interaction.
  Also, if you haven't tried already, I would try fully shutting down Safari, and then restarting the Mac. Don't open Safari yet, but try to add the Mail account. This one is a shot in the dark, but worth trying ;)
Che Gabana ("YES?")
January 1, 2021
[[[Someone asked me to post my solution under this blog post]]]
I've used the following formula over and over and over, for my own Macs, and the Macs of countless others, mostly when it comes to using Apple Mail for GoDaddy email addresses, work email addresses, etc. It works for Gmail, Yahoo, etc, but it seems the majority of users experience this issue with Godaddy and work email addresses.
For some reason there is a persistent "break" in the chain of automatic "password" inputs into the relevant background spaces within Mail. And no matter how many times you enter your password when the screen pops up for you to after you hit 'send', or how many times you delete then re-enter it on the 'Internet Accounts' screen of Mail, it just won't work.
So do this instead;
1) Open Mail
2) Go to Mail tab at the very top of your home screen (Mail will be in bold) and click/tap
3) In the drop down menu, click/tap 'Preferences'
4) Now click/tap the email account giving you trouble
5) Go to 'Account Information' tab
6) Eye-scroll down to 'Outgoing Mail Server (SMTP)'
7) Now click/tap the drop down box right next to it (you should already see the account you wish to remedy highlighted before you click/tap the drop down box - if not, no worries)
8) Now click/tap 'Edit SMTP Server List'
9) In the new screen that drops down or opens up, verify the account you wish to remedy is highlighted - if not, click/tap on it to highlight
10) Now the bottom half of the new screen that revealed itself in step 9 (the previous step) will show 2 tabs; 'Account Information' and 'Advanced'
11) Click/tap 'Advanced' (YOU MUST PERFORM THIS STEP WITH THE 'ADVANCED' TAB ON *THIS* SCREEN -- NOTE: THE 'ADVANCED' TAB IN THE 'INTERNET ACCOUNTS' TAB WILL NOT HELP YOU)
12) Eye-scroll to the 'Password' box below the 'User Name' box
13) 99% of the time, this box will be EMPTY -- and herein lies the problem! It either depopulates, or fails to auto-populate
14) ENTER YOUR PASSWORD (if the box was NOT empty, delete what's there and correctly enter your password!)
15) Now click/tap 'OK' and let the magic of Mail resume
This formula will work in addition to the minority of suggestions within and below this post, however also renders the majority of the suggestions within and below this post null, and useless to even try -- so immediately AFTER verifying the 'Enable this account' box is checked (as indicated at the end of the author's post), follow the above "15 Step Formula" as your fully-loaded troubleshoot.
It should also be noted that "removing the account" and "setting it up again" as the author suggests as the primary solution is not only an excessively time consuming approach, but has led to even LARGER headaches for users -- as both their native AND server mail data of the same, was lost and gone forever.
Hope this helps you get back to work and away from your headache!
- Kelly HW
  January 1, 2021
  Hi Che,
  Thank you for taking the time to post your solution on the blog. Thank you to whoever asked you to post it as well. I agree that removing and re-adding the account is not an ideal solution, so I am interested to see if anyone has good results with what you suggest here. If so, I will definitely add your solution to the suggestions in the article!
Thunderbolt
January 1, 2021
This problem suddenly popped up a few weeks ago with no OS or other changes on my part. Sometimes my incoming as well as outgoing mail is blocked blocked for hours, then suddenly works all on its own. If I need immediate action I have to shut down and restart, then mail is active very briefly. I have tried everything suggested by you and others with no success. My wife has an identical computer with OS 10.14.6 and no problems, while I have 10.14.5, I wonder if that has anything to do with the issue? I an trying to upload to 10.14.6 but it keeps disconnecting after a short time saying there is a network issue - I will keep trying to get 10.14.6. I have read somewhere to use "Connection Doctor" for the mail issue but don't know where or how to access it? Any help would be most welcome. Thanks.
- Kelly HW
  January 1, 2021
  Thanks for leaving a comment Thunderbolt! It's definitely interesting that you're experiencing intermittent email connectivity and you have some network issues trying to update to 10.14.6. The issue for both may be network connectivity in general.
  I assume you and your wife both are connected to your network via wifi? You could try restarting your wifi router to see if it helps. If your Mac has a ethernet cable port on it, you could also try plugging in directly to the router at least to download the update. If that helps, next time the mail is flakey, you could try that again to see if it's a wifi issue rather than a mail issue.
Andres
June 6, 2020
Hi all someone please help!! I am having an issue getting my work email to work properly it just keeps saying 'Offline' for some reason.
- Kelly HW
  June 6, 2020
  Hi Andres,
  If you've tried the suggestions in the article already, have you tried the steps in the recent comment by Gideon? That's to log into one of the offline accounts on Gmail in Safari browser (has to be Safari, not Chrome or Firefox) and then wait a few minutes. Gideon also restarted after logging in on Safari, but we're not sure if that's necessary.
Gideon Silberman
May 5, 2020
I have an easy fix to this recurring problem that I have encountered as well. Easy, at lest it works for me.
My set up:
I am using Mojave 10.14.6. Apple mail with 5 regular gmail accounts, one pop3, one iCloud, one business gmail account. One of the regular gmail always works (the same) - which is my wife's. The business sometimes work.
The solution: Open safari, new browser, enter gmail - log in on one of the accounts that are offline on your apple mail. Give it time, a few minutes. I restarted my computer, not sure it was needed. But the offline gmail accounts are back again on apple mail.
It triggered my attention that the account of my wife always works. She has it running open on her PC.
Ce tu, simple.
- Kelly HW
  May 5, 2020
  I would guess this may fix some underlying issue where the keychain entries for the gmail accounts don't get updated in the Mail settings, but do when you log in in Safari. I like it!
  Interested to see if this suggestion helps other people, and fold it in to the main article assuming so!
  If you try this, please comment to let us know whether it helps you or not!
Natalia N
May 5, 2020
I've tried this and after following all the steps, it appears a message saying Authentication Failed with all my google accounts.
- Kelly HW
  May 5, 2020
  Hi Natalia,
  I have a couple of ideas, based on doing a bit of research for what helped others getting stuck with failed authentication.
  1. Try setting Safari as your default browser, restarting, and then try setting up Gmail again.
  2. Purge the existing o-auth token info for Google that may be incorrectly cached.
  - Quit out of Mail & Messages if they're open.
  - Open the Keychain Access app (search for keychain in the upper right corner)
  - Make sure "login" and "all items" are selected.
  - In the upper right corner of Keychain Access search for "google.oa"
  - Delete these 3 tokens for the account in question (Click on each one to see what account they're for and match the account):
  * com.apple.account.Google.oauth-token
  * com.apple.account.Google.oauth-expiry-date
  * com.apple.account.Google.oath-refresh-token
  - Try to log in again.
John H
April 4, 2020
Guys - I went through months of frustration with this thing. First I could receive and not send. Then it stopped receiving too. I was told to call Frontier and get the password changed. Did that - didn't work. But I didn't give up. I removed all associated frontier net .net accounts (3 of them) and reloaded just one until I got it work. I found out that the sending info from frontier was wrong. Apparently when they partnered with Yahoo they eventually began changing the SMTP side of the settings. I am going to try to attach a pic of the settings that cured my problem. Basically the SMTP setting was not "smtp.frontier.com" but changed by frontier to "smtp.mail.yahoo.com". When I verified all other info and changed the sending port info it worked like a charm!
- Kelly HW
  April 4, 2020
  Thank you for the great comment John! Checking that the smtp server is correct (and didn't change!) is a great addition for me to add to this article!
dkgee
February 2, 2020
After installing Catalina on a clean HD I, too, have started getting the repeated messages about Gmail going off line. I have a number of Gmail accounts in my Apple Mail and this problem seems to affect different accts randomly. Previously, with earlier OS, I would have issues with one or more of the Gmail accounts SMTP reporting "offline" for no obvious reason, but these Mail alert dialog boxes only began with Catalina. I have tried the obvious 'Delete and Reset' for the accounts with no luck. Is there a more detailed fix?
Jane C Griffith
February 2, 2020
We have had this problem several times; it is getting tiresome to have to constantly remove a gmail account and then sign into it again! Right now my husband's Mac has 4 gmail accounts in Mail, and only one outgoing gmail works. Email will come into all 4 accounts, but sent email goes from just 1 gmail address; since the other 3 are "offline." (The Sent emails from all 4 accounts show up in another's mail box as if they were all sent from the one gmail account where the outgoing mail is not "offline.")
Any ideas on WHY this happens, and how to stop the constant steps of deleting a gmail account and then going back in to sign and set it up again, just to have the outgoing mail go to "offline" again?
- Kelly HW
  February 2, 2020
  Hi Jane,
  It does seem crazy that 1 connection to gmail would be fine, while three others would claim connection failure. Since your husband's Mac has this problem fairly predictably, if you want to send me an email via our support page https://deciphertools.com/s... I can send you some instructions to pull the system error logs while you open mail there. We can see if there's something useful in the error logs. Please mention my name in the message, so my colleagues know to route it to me ;)
  - Jane C Griffith
    February 2, 2020
    Thanks - I’ve managed to solve the problem in the meantime !
    Kelly HW
    February 2, 2020
    That's great news! What was happening? (if it's something that may help others, I'm sure future people who end up on this blog post would want to know!)
    
    Dr Paul Furey
    February 2, 2020
    Hi jane - what did you do??? this Mail thing is driving me mad. Heeeeelp!
Efim
January 1, 2020
Mail message that google account is offline appears rather often (I have several active email accounts but the message is about only Google). It seems that account is offline only for very short time since it is already online when I checked the message. But Mail message about this (perhaps very short interruption) is quite annoying. Is any way to get rid of this specific notification keeping, of course, active "New mail" alerts working? Thanks.
P.S. MacOS 10.15.2, appeared only recently after updating to Catalina
- Kelly HW
  January 1, 2020
  Hi Efim,
  Hmm I don't know about this one yet. I'm doing a bit of research on it though. In your System Preferences > Accounts > the google account, is Mail the only item checked of Mail, Contacts, Calendars, and Notes, or are any of the others checked as well?
MooseBreath Mints
December 12, 2019
Thank you, KW! Your information was spot on! Thank you!
Kelly Krauss
December 12, 2019
I've done all of the steps twice and it is still not working... any other suggestions?
- Kelly HW
  December 12, 2019
  Hi Kelly (great name!) Are you still stuck on your mail SMTP account? If so, contact us through our support page, so that you and I can take a closer look at your settings and error messages if there are any https://deciphertools.com/s...
Pam Engebretson
April 4, 2019
Thank you Kelly!-- FIXED. My head was about to explode.
Robert Jacobson, Ph.D.
February 2, 2019
This problem and ones like it have been troubling Mac users ever since Apple Mail came on the scene. It's a kludge with parts that don't exactly work well together -- and just when you think you have a solution, another part breaks. Time perhaps to use another mail system?
walshwhizz@xtra.co.nz
September 9, 2018
really useless - need to back up email before you do anything as lost everything including all saved emails.
- Kelly HW
  September 9, 2018
  Hi walshwhizz,
  For most email setups, your emails should still be on your IMAP server, rather than stored locally on your computer. If you go to the Gmail web interface, are your emails still there?
M Fitz
July 7, 2018
Thanks for the help. I have been working on this all day! Finally, I found this. Easy fix! Phew!
Rona Gindin
July 7, 2018
All of these have worked for me in the past, but they're not working now. Sometimes just opening gmail in Chrome works, but not this time. Do you have any other ideas?
- Kelly HW
  July 7, 2018
  Hi Rona,
  What version of macOS are you running (Apple Menu > About This Mac > Version number)? I want to make sure we brainstorm for the right version of Apple Mail.
  - Rona Gindin
    July 7, 2018
    Thanks so much, Kelly. I have 10.13.5 (17F77). Usually if I wait a couple of hours the gmails start coming through, but they haven't this time. And, I have (rarely used) other gmail accounts, and those are online.
    Rona Gindin
    July 7, 2018
    And, suddenly it all works, after hours and hours.
    Kelly HW
    July 7, 2018
    I'm glad it's working!
    Rona Gindin
    July 7, 2018
    In case this helps you help others: I decided to write an important letter in Apple Mail only because I prefer the format to that on the Gmail website. The problem fixed itself after I initiated writing the email.
Anthony Longjas
June 6, 2018
This works! Upgraded to high sierra this week and had the outgoing mail server problem. Thanks for the help!
KayKay
May 5, 2018
I have tried everything. Nothing works. Help!
David Theo
February 2, 2018
This solved the problem, although I had to do a second step that was not described, and that was to click on the small box in the Accounts Preferences labeled "Enable this account". Once I did that, it was back to normal.
- Kelly HW
  February 2, 2018
  Hi David,
  I will add this into the instructions! Thank you for mentioning this!
Josh Wooler
February 2, 2018
Still not working, so annoying.
I'm sure I'll eventually figure it out.

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