Question :

On my iPhone I keep getting a warning message that I need to log in to an old eMail-account that I no longer own. I just need the old mailbox around on my Mac because I might need to access the old eMails sometime in the future, but I don’t need any of it on my iPhone.

What can I do ?

Answer :

On your Mac, you just need to set the account to ‘Inactive’. To do so, do this :

• open Mail.app
• in the top menu bar, top left, next to the Apple-logo, click on Mail
• in the pulldown-menu, click on Accounts
• in the new window that opens, click on the old eMail-account in the list on the left
• in the info that appears, make sure that “Enable this account” is unchecked

Then, on your iPhone, make sure that the old eMail-address is not active in any way :

• open the Settings.app
• in the window that opens (“Settings”), scroll down and click on Mail
• in the window that opens (“Mail”), click on Notifications
• in the window that opens (“Notifications”), see if the old eMail-address is listed
• if it’s not listed, you’re okay
• if it is listed, click on it
• in the window that opens, switch “Allow Notifications” to OFF
• then go back/exit to the first window of the Settings.app (“Settings”)
• click on Notes
• in the window that opens (“Notes”), at “Default Account” click on the account name on the right
• in the window that opens (“Default Account”), see if your old eMail-address is listed
• if it is not listed, you’re okay
• if it is listed, make sure it isn’t checked as your Default Account
• then go back / exit to the iPhone’s main screen
• open the Notes.app
• Note : you might get a warning message here saying you need to input your old eMail-account’s password… if so, just deny
• in the window that opens (“Notes”), click on the orange <-icon top left
• in the window that opens (“Folders”), see if the old eMail-account is listed
• if it is not listed, you’re okay
• if it is listed, see how many notes each folder contains, and write those numbers down
• then click on the >-icon at the right of the old eMail-account
• in the window that opens (“Notes”), you will see all of the notes that are still on the old eMail-account
• then click on Edit (top right)
• then click on Move All (bottom left)
• in the window that opens, select a folder to move these old notes to (I would suggest to move them to your iCloud account’s folder, but you can choose any other folder, or you can create a new folder by clicking on “New Folder”)
• then, in the window that opens (“Folders”), your old eMail-account will still be listed, but the number of notes in it will be 0 (and the number of notes in the folder that you’ve previously chosen will have increased by the exact number that was in your old eMail-account)
• then go back / exit to the iPhone’s main screen
• open the Settings.app
• in the window that opens (“Settings”), scroll down and click on “Passwords & Accounts”
• in the window that opens (“Passwords & Accounts”), see if the old eMail-address is listed
• if it is not listed, you’re okay
• if it is listed, see if anything is mentioned below it (e.g. “Inactive”, “Mail” of “Notes”) and click on the >-icon at the right of it
• in the window that opens, make sure that everything is switched to OFF (e.g. “Mail” and “Notes”)
• when the “are you sure you want to continue?” pop-up opens, you can now click on “Delete from My iPhone” since you have just moved your notes to another account
• Note : you might run into a bug here that prevents you from switching of Notes for your old eMail-account, if so : just leave it
• now go back / exit to your iPhone’s main screen

That’s it !

enjoy 😉