AOL Mail - no longer working

Author
Discussion

981Boxess

Original Poster:

11,507 posts

264 months

Monday 13th February 2023
quotequote all
I have had an AOL email address since God was a boy and it has been working perfectly well for decades, but no longer works via PCs or mobiles.

I have tried all the server settings that Googled turned up and the only conclusion I can draw is they no longer want anyone using 3rd party apps, like Outlook, apple mail etc. to retrieve or handle their mail. They have no telephone support so nobody to ask.

It first packed out on my PC outlook, which again has always worked perfectly. It has now packed up on my iphone, which again has always worked perfectly. Webmail is fine, they obviously want me to do it that way and if I download their awful app that works, so it isn't a password issue.

Obviously that email address is attached to just about anything I have done for decades so ideally would like to find a way of fixing this.

Anyone in the same boat or got any ideas?

goldar

550 posts

28 months

Monday 13th February 2023
quotequote all
Well your options are limited. Limited to nothing. Either carry on as you are, or set up a new email ad.

boyse7en

7,039 posts

171 months

Monday 13th February 2023
quotequote all
Checked my emails this morning on my Mac, which downloads them through the Mac Mail app, and it was all working fine.
I use the AOL app on my phone and that is working OK too.


Edit:

I seem to remember a few years ago I had to create some sort of security password on the AOL site to allow Mail to access my AOL account.
Try looking in your account settings on the AOL website and see if you can create a one-time password for Outlook

Edited by boyse7en on Monday 13th February 14:58

981Boxess

Original Poster:

11,507 posts

264 months

Monday 13th February 2023
quotequote all
boyse7en said:
Checked my emails this morning on my Mac, which downloads them through the Mac Mail app, and it was all working fine.
I use the AOL app on my phone and that is working OK too.
Yes the app works on the phone but had already started bombarding me with ads.

I guess they want to be paid for using their email addresses now, via ads.

w1bbles

1,040 posts

142 months

Monday 13th February 2023
quotequote all
Do you have to use app-specific passwords like with iCloud? Try googling that and seeing if it fixes it for you.

981Boxess

Original Poster:

11,507 posts

264 months

Monday 13th February 2023
quotequote all
goldar said:
Well your options are limited. Limited to nothing. Either carry on as you are, or set up a new email ad.
I didn't think of that, thanks.

981Boxess

Original Poster:

11,507 posts

264 months

Monday 13th February 2023
quotequote all
w1bbles said:
Do you have to use app-specific passwords like with iCloud? Try googling that and seeing if it fixes it for you.
Within AOL webmail you can go into the settings and there is an option to generate a password, when you go to generate it it says 'currently not available'.

I emailed and explained that to them and asked when it would be available and they said they didn't know, that was a week ago.

981Boxess

Original Poster:

11,507 posts

264 months

Monday 13th February 2023
quotequote all
boyse7en said:
Checked my emails this morning on my Mac, which downloads them through the Mac Mail app, and it was all working fine.
I use the AOL app on my phone and that is working OK too.


Edit:

I seem to remember a few years ago I had to create some sort of security password on the AOL site to allow Mail to access my AOL account.
Try looking in your account settings on the AOL website and see if you can create a one-time password for Outlook

Edited by boyse7en on Monday 13th February 14:58
Within AOL webmail you can go into the settings and there is an option to generate a password, when you go to generate it it says 'currently not available'.


boyse7en

7,039 posts

171 months

Monday 13th February 2023
quotequote all
981Boxess said:
boyse7en said:
Checked my emails this morning on my Mac, which downloads them through the Mac Mail app, and it was all working fine.
I use the AOL app on my phone and that is working OK too.


Edit:

I seem to remember a few years ago I had to create some sort of security password on the AOL site to allow Mail to access my AOL account.
Try looking in your account settings on the AOL website and see if you can create a one-time password for Outlook

Edited by boyse7en on Monday 13th February 14:58
Within AOL webmail you can go into the settings and there is an option to generate a password, when you go to generate it it says 'currently not available'.
Literally just tried it here on my work computer and I can go into my "Account security" settings and see this...




And if i click through to generate an App password I get...


So it seems to be working. Unless it falls over later in the process

981Boxess

Original Poster:

11,507 posts

264 months

Monday 13th February 2023
quotequote all
boyse7en said:
Literally just tried it here on my work computer and I can go into my "Account security" settings and see this...




And if i click through to generate an App password I get...


So it seems to be working. Unless it falls over later in the process
Thanks for your help but it goes wrong when you try to generate, the next step

981Boxess

Original Poster:

11,507 posts

264 months

Monday 13th February 2023
quotequote all

981Boxess

Original Poster:

11,507 posts

264 months

Monday 13th February 2023
quotequote all


It has been like that for a week and when I emailed them to ask when it will be working the answer was they don't know - I suspect never.

boyse7en

7,039 posts

171 months

Monday 13th February 2023
quotequote all
Looks like it is working OK for me.
In case it matters (not sure why it would) I'm accessing the website from a Mac using Chrome


bigandclever

13,924 posts

244 months

Monday 13th February 2023
quotequote all
This is of limited help, but the internet is awash with people having the same issue going back to at least early last year so you're not alone. From a user perspective it seems to be sporadic, in that occasionally it just starts (re) working.

Dogwatch

6,263 posts

228 months

Monday 13th February 2023
quotequote all
Sorry to be the bearer of bad news but working ok here.

Are you using mail.aol.com?

boyse7en

7,039 posts

171 months

Monday 13th February 2023
quotequote all
Dogwatch said:
Sorry to be the bearer of bad news but working ok here.

Are you using mail.aol.com?
That's for getting AOL on its webmail service. The OP is trying to get it to connect to his email client (Outlook/Mail/etc).

anonymous-user

60 months

Monday 13th February 2023
quotequote all
AOL still working for me as far as I can tell. Outlook on my Mac and iPhone are reading it ok.

But, you do raise a more significant point that I too have had one AOL email address, used for pretty much everything, for 28 years... I don't want to change emails as it will be the worlds biggest pain in the arse. My email is used for literally hundreds of logins.

But I suspect AOL want rid of people like me.

GCH

4,042 posts

208 months

Monday 13th February 2023
quotequote all
My AOL still works for sending/receiving via my gmail

981Boxess

Original Poster:

11,507 posts

264 months

Monday 13th February 2023
quotequote all
Lord Marylebone said:
AOL still working for me as far as I can tell. Outlook on my Mac and iPhone are reading it ok.

But, you do raise a more significant point that I too have had one AOL email address, used for pretty much everything, for 28 years... I don't want to change emails as it will be the worlds biggest pain in the arse. My email is used for literally hundreds of logins.

But I suspect AOL want rid of people like me.
I have tried to access the password generator with Chrome, Explorer and Edge, in case it made any difference - none work.

I suspect whatever is left of AOL wants everyone on their App or using their webmail so they can force feed them ads.

I can see where this is going, I don't want to change my email address any more than you do but at some point I will have to bite the bullet and move to Microsoft/Google, which I am sure will always be there in the future. The fact it has been this easy to effectively turn off my email (the way I want to handle it) now bothers me.

981Boxess

Original Poster:

11,507 posts

264 months

Monday 13th February 2023
quotequote all
GCH said:
My AOL still works for sending/receiving via my gmail
Could you please explain this scratchchin