[FIX] Snow Leopard mail password iCloud 2 step verification issue

[jimthing]

See link below on how to fix password not being accepted in Mail.app on Snow Leopard, when one has enabled 2-step verification on your iCloud account (i.e. icloud.com/me.com/mac.com email accounts).

Note that you do NOT have to disable 2-step verification here, just get an app-specific password, as explained in the link:

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/uk.comp.sys.mac/jjdUxvO6e2M

Should (usually!) only be a Snow Leo problem, as Lion onwards recognises normal password without doing this, via Sys Prefs setup.


...Just a problem I couldn't solve for days, nor even the iCloud specialist at 2nd-line support at the stuffing useless Applecare, either!

 

[Rigby]

There is actually an Apple knowledgebase article about that:

http://support.apple.com/kb/ht6186

They also sent out emails to all account holders that are using 2-factor auth a few weeks ago. Very surprised to hear that the Apple support person apparently wasn't aware of that.

 

[jimthing]

True, I got that too. But please note it makes no comment about Snow Leopard. It in fact only says:

"To use iCloud with any third party apps (such as Microsoft Outlook, Mozilla Thunderbird, or BusyCal) you must sign in using an app-specific password. [...]"

Hence as a native non-third party app, one wouldn't necessarily realise that Mail.app in Snow Leopard was also caught-up in this new app-specific password system.

And yeah, it was pretty weird that the ACare bloke had no clue on it whatsoever. Luckily we have great users like Roger from the Google link above who post such fix notifications that help many other users out, lol! So just sharing the love.

(in fact remember seeing him around here – IIRC, posting something useful about upgrading from one Time Capsule to another and moving the backup, or something similar.