Can't send mail

[grimsargh]

I need some advice, as of three days ago I have not been able to receive emails to my Mac address, or send any replies, they just sit in the out box. 2017 desktop Mac, Version 11.6 Big Sur. I have two other email addresses, one Yahoo and also Google that are connected to Mail and which I use for various other reasons and I am receiving mail from each of these addresses but still unable to reply. I know there is an update to the next version but I am told when I try to install it that I don't have enough room to do so. I am wondering if there is something left over from this abhorted install that is causing my problem and if so what and where should I look.
Thanks. Kaye

 

[DaveWT]

When you look in the sidebar in Mail on your Mac, do you see any little yellow alerts? Sometimes just quitting Mail and re-launching will clear up some issues and take accounts from offline to online. Not sure if your tight storage condition is related but that certainly isn't a situation you should remain in, if it is preventing updates. Your might consider trying to offload some of your rarely used stuff to an external drive to free up hard drive space. Things like videos take up a lot of room or large photo collections even. If you are receiving emails on the Yahoo and Google accounts but not able to send from them, that suggests your outgoing server settings are wrong. Under the Mail menu item go to Preferences > Accounts > (click on the account in question) > Server Settings but someone else will have to advise you on the proper entries as I do not use Yahoo or Google for mail.

 

[grimsargh]

Thanks for the suggestions Dave, have done just about everything I can think of to clear the problem including your suggestions, my .mac address is greyed out completely and only the other two email addresses show up. So I shall pursue it further later today. Now I find that Backup is't working either, my external drive connects along with the other two partitions I have on that one, it is a large one, but when I click on the Time Machine one there is nothing on it and it won't back up. So something isn't right all of a sudden and will need further investigation. Won't get done today though. Hopefully I can solve it without having to make an hour and a half drive to the Apple Store.

 

[chas_m]

I need some advice, as of three days ago I have not been able to receive emails to my Mac address, or send any replies, they just sit in the out box. 2017 desktop Mac, Version 11.6 Big Sur. I have two other email addresses, one Yahoo and also Google that are connected to Mail and which I use for various other reasons and I am receiving mail from each of these addresses but still unable to reply. I know there is an update to the next version but I am told when I try to install it that I don't have enough room to do so. I am wondering if there is something left over from this abhorted install that is causing my problem and if so what and where should I look.
Thanks. Kaye

Two different things going on.

1. Your iCloud email isn’t send8ng out, but the other two are working correctly.
2. Sounds like your storage is nearly full.

The storage is actually the more important problem to fix, as the entire machine will stop working if it fills up. Try to find out what’s taking up all the room, and move or prune the culprits.

Back to the Mail issue, the first step to take is to sign in again to your Apple ID on the machine that is having the issue. If that’s not the problem, try visiting iCloud.com, signing in there, and see if you can reply to an email from there.

 

[grimsargh]

Thanks Charles, I have got the email problem solved by doing as you said, so that is now fine.
I was trying to move two sets of files connected to my sewing/embroidery and designs which do have some video's which are probably the culprits, to another external drive thereby I could then remove them from my computer but for some reason I don't seem to be able to do that. The drive I had was an unused 4T WD Easy Store one I have had a couple of years so I am wondering if it is not compatible any more, I have tried formatting as suggested via Apple things I have read but it still doesn't want to backup just those two folders. I am from the old drag and drop to copy files to an external drive, but that doesn't seem to work any more. Seems the brain fogs up more these days. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

 

[chas_m]

If you have formatted the drive using your Mac, then you should be able to do drag-and-drop of folders without issue. The 4T WD drive remains compatible with Macs. Be aware that copying to external drives that are "hard drives" (spinning platters) will take a long time, particularly if videos are involved, than the lightning-fast copy progress of SSDs.

 

[grimsargh]

I thought I had formatted correctly, however, since it was empty I decided to reformat and try again, worked this time, a few video's but not many, I think it was more the embroidery files which sometimes are large, and there are a lot of those. Thanks for the assistance Charles.