Fix Mail Problems - Take Control of Apple Mail (1.0) - page 106

Note : If you don't see the individual account names in your sidebar, click the triangle next to
the Inbox icon to expand the account list.
You can take an account offline manually by choosing Mailbox > Online Status > Take
“ Account-Name ” Offline; you can also take all your accounts offline at once by choosing Mail-
box > Take All Accounts Offline.
If you encounter a squiggle, follow these steps:
1. Check your Internet connection: Visit your favorite Web site to make sure
your computer can access the Internet. If it can't, the problem relates to a failed
Internet connection. If it can, continue with the next step.
2. Try bringing your accounts online manually: To reestablish a connection,
click the squiggle symbol next to an account name. Sometimes this jogs the
connection back to life. If the account remains offline, continue to the next step.
3. Check mail server availability: Mail servers occasionally crash or become
unreachable due to network problems. If an account remains offline even after
you complete Step 2, contact your email provider to see if there's a problem.
Bangs
If you see an exclamation point inside a triangle , which I refer to as a “bang,” next to an
account name in your sidebar, that account had a failed connection. This means Mail could
contact the server, but received an error message before it could log in.
If you encounter a bang, follow these steps:
1. Try again: Click the bang symbol to display a dialog with the error message
Mail encountered—it may tell you what the problem is, or at least give you some
troubleshooting clues. Regardless of the error message, click Take All Accounts
Online. Sometimes errors are fleeting and go away if you do this.
2. Check your authentication method: Mail can use any of several methods
to send your mail server your username and password. If you selected a method
that your mail server doesn't understand, it will complain.
Go to Mail > Accounts > Account Name > Advanced, set the Authentication
pop-up menu to Password, close the Preferences window (saving changes when
prompted), and then try to connect once again. If the error remains, repeat
the procedure with the other options in the pop-up menu, starting with MD5
Challenge-Response (or, for an iCloud account, Apple Token).