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Email passwords for mail accounts

Now that I have updated to the latest version of Mojave (10.14.4), I can no longer find the location where my passwords for my three email accounts were entered and where they can be changed. I should be grateful for information — also about how I can see what the current password for a particular email account is.

Mac mini, macOS 10.14

Posted on Apr 26, 2019 7:58 AM

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Posted on Apr 26, 2019 8:22 AM

Please refer to Change Server Settings in Mail on Mac.


Note that it refers to your password on the mail server which means that field's contents must correspond to the password designated by your email service provider, which means you must contact your email service provider for instructions regarding changing it.


I don't know of any email service providers that would be able to tell you what your password is. That information is generally "hashed" which means they have no way of determining it. They can however reset your password.


To determine passwords stored on your Mac use Keychain Access—it's in your Mac's Utilities folder. Your login password is required to de-encrypt and view it.

6 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Apr 26, 2019 8:22 AM in response to Michael Graubart

Please refer to Change Server Settings in Mail on Mac.


Note that it refers to your password on the mail server which means that field's contents must correspond to the password designated by your email service provider, which means you must contact your email service provider for instructions regarding changing it.


I don't know of any email service providers that would be able to tell you what your password is. That information is generally "hashed" which means they have no way of determining it. They can however reset your password.


To determine passwords stored on your Mac use Keychain Access—it's in your Mac's Utilities folder. Your login password is required to de-encrypt and view it.

Apr 26, 2019 9:31 AM in response to Michael Graubart

Google Mail has a different way of doing things and I can't offer much assistance because I don't use it. As far as I know though, deleting the email account(s) and adding them again according to Add or remove email accounts in Mail on Mac - Apple Support should solicit your Google Mail password. Resetting it will require their instructions, so start there.


Also, refer to If Mail on your Mac keeps asking for your password which specifically addresses Google Mail.

Apr 26, 2019 9:20 AM in response to John Galt

Thank you, PM. I rather expected to be told that I cannot find out what my current email passwords are. But as far as accessing the place where to insert my passwords is concerned, I looked at Server Settings before posting this query, and this (attached) is what I see for my usual email account — and the dialog for inserting a password is what i don't see.


[Image Edited by Moderator to Remove Personal Information]

Apr 26, 2019 9:30 AM in response to Michael Graubart

Just to add to the above , never mind changing my passwords — I know how to do that via the 'Forgot your password?' route. But before recent iOS updates, if, say, gmail (or, much more usually, btinternet) told me that there was a problem with my password, I could go to Accounts and re-enter my current password there. Now it seems that the dialog for doing that has disappeared. That is what I was mainly asking about. Where has that page or that dialog gone?

Apr 26, 2019 10:01 AM in response to John Galt

Thank you again, John Galt, and my apologies for misreading the heading of your previous reply and addressing you as 'pm'.


I don't use Gmail's 2-way authentication for my email account. That is not the source of my problem. In fact all three of my email accounts — even the BT one — are working perfectly well at the moment; the reason for my initial posting was that I have my personal way of keeping a record of my most important passwords and today discovered that I may not have kept one of the email ones up-to-date.


If I have understood you correctly, the only way to re-enter a password for an email account is to delete the account and set the account up again. My memory tells me (but it may be telling a lie) that there used to be a way of just deleting a password and typing it in again. If that has been changed by email providers and not by Apple in updates to MacOS and iOS, then it is strange that my three email accounts — gmail, bt/yahoo! internet and icloud — have all changed in this way at around the same time. I remain puzzled.

Email passwords for mail accounts

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