Mail does not recognize us

[knollfinder]

My wife cannot get Mail to recognize her ID or PW. She is on a sub-account to me, with Verizon/AOL, but I think the problem is with how Mail is set up. She is running OS 10.11.6, and Mail 9.3. Her computer was originally mine, and recently we up dated to 10.11.6. When she originally got the computer, Mail worked fine, but now:
When I look at Mail/Preferences/Accounts, it shows AOL (inbound) and aol (outbound) both hers
When I look at System/Preferences/Internet Accounts, it shows AOL attributed to me, and aol to her.
When I look at Mail/Accounts, it shows AOL attributed to me, and aol to her.

She is able to do email fine by going to aol.com, ant using Mail, but really does not like that mode of operating. I have thought of removing "my account" wherever it is, but the only place to remove an account is Mail/Preferences/Accounts, and that shows everything to be ok.

 

[Cory Cooper]

Hello,

AOL has changed their server information numerous times over the years. It can be a bit tricky to diagnose.

If you no longer need your account on the Mac, the proper way to remove your account is not in the Mail application itself, but from the Internet Account preference pane.

You can test the connection of email accounts in the Mail application, by clicking Window > Connection Doctor from the menu bar.

I just tried adding my AOL account on an older Mac mini running OS X 10.11.6 El Capitan, and it doesn't validate my account using the Aol preset or Add another account manual process. I get an Unable to verify account name or password error. My guess is it may be related to the authentication protocols in the older version of OS X, which don't comply with the current standards. Because of this, the only way to get it working again would be to update to a newer version of OS X/macOS, or use the AOL webmail interface in a browser on that Mac.

C