ACTION REQUIRED: Set your SMTP password

[Clemens Lang]

Hi Ryan,

On Tue, Nov 17, 2020 at 11:44:17PM -0600, Ryan Schmidt wrote:
> I have for years already had my MacPorts address set up in a dummy
> Mail.app POP3 account that has garbage (a hostname that does not
> exist) for its incoming mail server. I don't remember why I set it up
> this way. I had it set to use the same SMTP server as my main IMAP
> account.
> 
> Now I've added the new MacPorts SMTP server to the list, but when I
> try to select it (or any of my other configured SMTP servers actually)
> for this dummy account, Mail.app changes it back to the previous
> selection after a few seconds. Maybe there is just something weird
> about this old Mail.app account and I will try making a new one.

I did read about this behavior, but did not find an explanation as to
why this is happening.


> A problem with having it set up this way is that your sent MacPorts
> mail is stored in a separate sent mail folder for this account on your
> Mac, rather than in the IMAP sent mail folder of your primary email
> account where you might want to have it.

I believe you can choose to store sent mail in a different account's
IMAP sent folder in Preferences > Accounts > Mailbox Behaviors.


> Interesting idea. This might cause problems though if Mail.app insists
> on trying to store sent mail on the IMAP server which is what it would
> usually do.
> 
> Actually it looks like for IMAP Mail.app accounts you can specify
> where to store sent mail, so maybe that would work well after all.

I did set up an IMAP server on braeburn now. I was able to add a new
Mail.app account using this IMAP server with the same login credentials.

The IMAP server does not have write access on disk where it would be
trying to create mailboxes and store mails, so I don't see a problem
with having this running right now – it can't be used for anything, and
Mail.app also doesn't seem to mind very much that it cannot store
anything there.


> > The automatic method should be sufficient. If you uncheck that box,
> > you'll get the option to select these mechanisms, but that shouldn't
> > be necessary.
> 
> Right, if you uncheck the box you get options, but none of the options
> mention "STARTTLS" or "AUTH PLAIN".

STARTTLS translates to the "Use TLS/SSL" checkbox. Mail.app knows that
on port 587 with TLS enabled it needs to use STARTTLS. AUTH PLAIN is
"Authentication: Password" in Mail.app.

-- 
Clemens