Those who use AOL mail have reported some crashing issues or not receiving emails through to their inbox. Although there are many reasons why this might be happening, fortunately, most of them are a pretty easy fix.
Your AOL email may not be working for several possible reasons, including a server outage, incorrect security settings, and a faulty internet connection. Start by restarting your machine and confirming an internet connection before escalating to playing with the network settings on your machine.
So while this issue can be annoying, it’s also easy to fix. And now, let’s take a closer look at how to get an AOL email account working again if it’s crashing or not receiving emails.
Reasons Your AOL Email Account isn’t Working
There are many reasons your AOL email account may not be working correctly, including:
- A server outage.
- Incorrect mail settings.
- Incorrect security settings.
The first thing you should do is check that there are no AOL outages. If AOL doesn’t seem to be down, then you can move on to finding some solutions.
What to Do If Your AOL Mail Isn’t Receiving Emails
One common problem people have is not that their AOL is crashing, but their inbox doesn’t seem to be receiving emails. They report that some mail is missing, even though others claim they’ve sent it, or their inbox has just stopped reporting new mail. Here are the possible reasons.
You’ve Set Up an Email Filter
You should first check that you haven’t set up an email filter directing mail away from your inbox and into a folder. This is often a common reason people don’t see mail in their inbox—it’s going elsewhere instead!
Go to Mail Settings and then Filter Settings to check this out.
Check Your Block Settings
You’ll want to make sure you haven’t accidentally blocklisted a lot of addresses by going to Mail Settings and Block Senders. Here, you’ll be able to see if there are a lot of people listed that aren’t meant to be.
Check Spam/Junk Folders
It’s also worth checking out your spam and junk folders. Often, email clients aren’t as smart as we’d like to think, and they can catch things in their spam filters that aren’t necessarily supposed to be in that folder. As a result, you might find a host of unexpected emails.
How to Fix AOL Problems on a Smartphone
Since most people check their email on their phones nowadays, it’s essential to know how to fix these AOL email problems on a smartphone.
Android
On an Android phone, you need to choose Manual Settings in the AOL app. You then need to make sure all of these settings are correct under IMAP:
- AOL Mail IMAP Server Address: AOL.com
- AOL Mail IMAP Username: Your email address
- AOL Mail IMAP Password: Your password
- AOL Mail IMAP Port: 993
Then, under SMTP settings, you need to make sure it says this:
- SMTP Outgoing Server Address: AOL.com
- SMTP Username: Your AOL address
- SMTP Password: Your password
- SMTP Port: 465
- SMTP Security: TLS/SSL
Once you’ve done this, your AOL mail should be configured correctly. Next, restart the application to ensure they take effect and are saved.
iPhone
On an iPhone, things are slightly different. However, the settings should already be configured, and there’s no option to change them manually, so you can try a few other things to get your email working.
- Firstly, navigate to Settings.
- Then General.
- And then try Reset Network Settings.
This often fixes various connection issues, and your AOL mail might be one of them.
You can also try deleting the account from your device and reading it, so your phone will have to configure the settings for your address automatically.
How to Fix AOL Problems on a Mac or PC
Look at the app if you’re using your Mac to access AOL. If you see a little lightning icon next to your AOL account on the left-hand side, it means it’s not connected, and there’s something wrong with the settings.
To fix this:
- Try navigating to Applications.
- Then Mail.
- Then Accounts.
- And uncheck Use SSL under Advanced.
You can adjust the server settings here and use the same settings on an Android phone to get the proper setup. You can also try unlinking the account from the app and adding it back again, where the settings should automatically configure.
How to Adjust the Security Settings On Your Browser
Another issue might be that the security settings on your browser are preventing your AOL mail from working properly if you’re accessing it through one. But, again, you can adjust the security settings on your browser to see if that makes a difference.
To do this:
- Navigate to Settings and Advanced Settings.
- There, you can choose Cookies and Privacy and Security.
Block cookies from third parties can cause a standard error on your AOL account that may prevent you from accessing it. Users have widely reported this.
Other Troubleshooting Tips
Other common troubleshooting tips to try and get your AOL mail working again include:
Check Your Other Email Accounts
If your AOL account has stopped working, check the other email accounts on your specific device. If the other accounts are working, you can narrow the problem down to AOL on that device and not an overall general problem with email or connectivity.
If the other accounts aren’t working, there’s something wrong with your device. It always helps to know where the problem is coming from and narrow down your solutions.
Check Other Devices
Make sure you check if your AOL account is working on other devices. That way, you can tell if it’s something specific to a device or if the mail itself has settings that may be influencing the inbox anywhere (such as those filter or spam settings).
Check Internet Connectivity
Your internet connectivity can cause a whole range of different problems, so make sure you check it out and ensure it’s not that that’s influencing your email.
For example, if your device is connected to WiFi, try coming off and using the data to see if it can connect to the internet (or do the opposite).
If you don’t have WiFi and are constantly using mobile data, go into your settings and ensure your mobile data is turned on.
Check Your Email Address
Everyone makes mistakes. That means checking your email address and ensuring you’ve been giving out the right one. Unfortunately, it’s not unheard of for people to make mistakes with their email, causing them to give people an address where the emails get lost in cyberspace because no such address exists.
Restart Everything
People are often surprised by how restarting everything can help with many different problems.
If the problem is happening on your phone, restart the device. First, delete the app and reload it. Then, disconnect the account and add it back again. Restarting and resetting as much as possible can be huge and fix problems people weren’t even aware existed.
If you’re on a Mac or PC, you can also delete your email account and add it back to the app you’re using. If you’re using a browser, try clearing all cookies and reloading the browser.
Check for Updates
The last thing you should do is check for updates. Especially on mobile, apps will often require updates to fix bugs and keep up to date with the latest servers—and the older a version of an app gets, the less likely it is to keep being supported. So eventually, it will become outdated.
You can check for updates in the App Store on Apple or Play Store on Android. You can also go into the Settings and turn on Automatic Updates to ensure everything is kept automatically up to date.
Conclusion
One of these solutions should fix your problem.
Although there have been many rumors that AOL email will stop being supported soon due to its sale to Verizon and now Apollo Global Management, there’s nothing to suggest this is true—especially since the company has every incentive to keep the email running due to its popularity.
More than likely, there’s an issue with your device or settings, and going through these troubleshooting steps will have the AOL mail flowing in again.