Hi David,
As far as I understood, you’ve been using your Mail.app only and never a web interface, is that correct? If so, I’d try sending some test message via browser, first of all.
If memory serves, I’ve experienced similar non-preserved SMTP server preferences issue. My guess then was that it might have happened due to multiple conversions of mailboxes and app preferences, that were results of Mail.app version bumps during many successive system upgrades. I mean, when the MBP was purchased with Mac OS 10.6.6 and then has been finally upgraded to 10.13 during its lifetime.
That’s why I’ve always, as a rule of the thumb, performed clean installations of every major system version on my work Macs with manual importing of important mailboxes, and many other documents.
Thanks @schwartz , always good to check the fundamentals!
The MPB is logged in to iCloud (I only use iCloud for Mail and file most email On My Mac when dealt with so only use a few hundred MB of iCloud).
Yes, I confirmed the Settings for where to keep Sent Mail. I keep everything on iCloud until I’m done with it, then I file it as noted. I only do this out of habit I suppose because I’m not using any i-device to handle email, and the transition to MBAir. I could save it all OMM, but that would mess up my long standing work habits: stuff to get done is on iCloud; stuff dealt with is filed OMM.
Since I am slowly switching to a MBAir for daily computing, I also have all but one email account set up on that Mac, but don’t save anything to its internal storage. That way I can deal with the Mail and when back at the MBP file it locally there.
The MBA is logged in to a different iCloud ID that has never had its Mail set up, but still I’m able to use the Mail app for the MBP’s email on a different iCloud account. I was surprised that worked, actually, and has been doing so fine for about 1-1/2 years.
Correct, @endorphinity , I use the Mail app only and never the web browser version.
In fact, during the hours of Support, it was suggested a few times to try that for a reason they could not explain, but whenever I tried to go to iCloud in a browser the site told me I don’t have access to ‘data on the web in iCloud’ or similar language. The page prompted me to have a notification sent to devices logged in to iCloud that would point me to how to do this. I clicked the link several times and although it said Notifications had been sent to my devices, I never rec’d one.
So at this point I cannot log in to iCloud in a web browser even if I wanted to.
The deleting and adding the iCloud account solved the problem of SMTP server sticking rather than reverting to None, but it didn’t solve the issue of email not going to recipients.
I click Send and the emails go into my Sent Mailbox as if they were sent, but they don’t come out the other end.
I am in the process of transitioning daily computing over to a MBAir. I was hoping to go more slowly but now it looks like I’ll have to more quickly switch Mail at least.
I have a similar restriction, usually, on my iCloud account because of my security and privacy settings.
Here is how I turn web browser access on and off (I used perplexity.ai because it was quicker than typing my own text):
https://www.perplexity.ai/search/f563ccc5-d68e-4c3d-9331-99f0591bb3b0
Just discovered another oddity with Apple Mail.
On my MBAir I sent from Apple Mail to two non-Apple accounts a test email.
First try I put both non-Apple accounts in the To: field. This resulted in 2 emails in the Inboxes of the non-Apple accounts!
Then I tried from Apple Mail two individual emails, each addressed to each non-Apple account. That way each non Apple account only got the email addressed to it
