Remove "Enter your password for x account" notifications without deleting all data

[redheeler]

I have a couple defunct accounts with old data set up in Internet Accounts. MacOS keeps annoying me with notifications to enter the password for these accounts, which is of course impossible because they are, well, defunct.

These notifications are extremely persistent. MacOS doesn't care how often I dismiss them, they just come right back a little while later, or sometimes even immediately, and stay on my screen until dismissed. It's gotten so bad that sometimes I turn on Do Not Disturb just because of these notifications. I know I can get them to stop by deleting the accounts, but this is a destructive process and I will lose all the data.

Am I missing something obvious?

 

[chown33]

Maybe I'm overthinking this, but when I see things reappear after deletion, I immediately suspect some cloud-syncing is involved.

Is your list of accounts perhaps synced to something cloud-based?

Is any part of your Mac synced to any cloud-based accounts?

Exactly what service-provider are the defunct accounts provided by?
I.e. are they Apple ID's, or something else?

One easy test might be to disable all cloud-syncing, then see if the problem disappears.

 

[Bigwaff]

Disable the accounts in Mail settings.

 

[redheeler]

Maybe I'm overthinking this, but when I see things reappear after deletion, I immediately suspect some cloud-syncing is involved.

Is your list of accounts perhaps synced to something cloud-based?

Is any part of your Mac synced to any cloud-based accounts?

Exactly what service-provider are the defunct accounts provided by?
I.e. are they Apple ID's, or something else?

One easy test might be to disable all cloud-syncing, then see if the problem disappears.

There is no cloud syncing going on with those particular accounts, they are defunct like I said. It's likely trying to do that and then pops up a notification when it can't.

Disabling all cloud-syncing would also disable it for the accounts that are active, correct?

They're Microsoft Exchange accounts.

Disable the accounts in Mail settings.

Already did that. I was able to do so without losing the data as the emails come back if it's reenabled, however when I try to deactivate other things like notes and calendar it pops up a message saying it's going to delete the data.

Update: Disabled the accounts in the Calendar app as well, going to see if that fixes the issue.

 

[chown33]

There is no cloud syncing going on with those particular accounts, they are defunct like I said. It's likely trying to do that and then pops up a notification when it can't.

Disabling all cloud-syncing would also disable it for the accounts that are active, correct?

They're Microsoft Exchange accounts.

It seems I wasn't clear about what I meant. I meant that the list of accounts itself could be getting synced, using an active (non-defunct) account that has syncing enabled.

For example, suppose the two defunct MS Exchange accounts are named Alfa and Bravo. They're defunct, so they can't sync. Suppose you also have a live Apple ID account named Charlie, and you've enabled iCloud syncing for it.

Now, the fact that Alfa and Bravo are in the list of accounts suggests to me that the list with those items in it will be synced to the Charlie iCloud account's storage, because the list of accounts is important configuration data. The fact that Alfa and Bravo are defunct is irrelevant to the syncing of the list, because Charlie is active and syncing. The presence of Alfa and Bravo in a list that's being synced means the list with those accounts in it will be synced to the cloud.

Disabling all cloud-syncing is just a test. If you disable all cloud-syncing and the problem disappears, then that strongly implicates cloud-syncing as the means by which Alfa and Bravo are being revived. This is even more strongly implicated if you then re-enable cloud-syncing and the deleted Alfa and Bravo accounts reappear.

You didn't specify the service provider for the account where cloud-syncing is enabled. The more details you can provide about the service-providers and the nature of the accounts present in the list, the more info we have on which to make suggestions.

 

[redheeler]

It seems I wasn't clear about what I meant. I meant that the list of accounts itself could be getting synced, using an active (non-defunct) account that has syncing enabled.

For example, suppose the two defunct MS Exchange accounts are named Alfa and Bravo. They're defunct, so they can't sync. Suppose you also have a live Apple ID account named Charlie, and you've enabled iCloud syncing for it.

Now, the fact that Alfa and Bravo are in the list of accounts suggests to me that the list with those items in it will be synced to the Charlie iCloud account's storage, because the list of accounts is important configuration data. The fact that Alfa and Bravo are defunct is irrelevant to the syncing of the list, because Charlie is active and syncing. The presence of Alfa and Bravo in a list that's being synced means the list with those accounts in it will be synced to the cloud.

Disabling all cloud-syncing is just a test. If you disable all cloud-syncing and the problem disappears, then that strongly implicates cloud-syncing as the means by which Alfa and Bravo are being revived. This is even more strongly implicated if you then re-enable cloud-syncing and the deleted Alfa and Bravo accounts reappear.

You didn't specify the service provider for the account where cloud-syncing is enabled. The more details you can provide about the service-providers and the nature of the accounts present in the list, the more info we have on which to make suggestions.

The active accounts are Google, iCloud, and a different Microsoft Exchange account. There's no global switch to temporarily disable cloud syncing all active accounts from what I can tell. I don't recall the same accounts syncing between my devices, they've always been local to a specific device.

Disabling in Calendar didn't work, the notifications are still popping up. If I could disable everything (not just Mail and Calendar) on those accounts without data loss this probably would fix the issue. I don't think there's anything important I'd lose that's not in mail or calendar so maybe I just have to risk it. *sigh*

I expect better from Apple than annoying me with notifications that only go away once I delete accounts or related data from my computer, unless I happen to be one of its employees (I am not)...

 

[redheeler]

I disabled everything (including deleting all associated Notes and Reminders) from one of them and it's now labeled as inactive. I assume I won't get the notification anymore for that one. It should be possible to copy Notes and Reminders from a defunct account to one of the active ones and then delete them.

Edit: I couldn't drag the reminders from the defunct Exchange account to my iCloud account, but I could drag them to my working Exchange account. That works, I guess.