AT&T IMAP settings vs Yahoo IMAP settings (and Secure Mail Key for Outlook)

Hi there, @DrDPJZ! We've come to answer your email questions.

To answer your first question, we've got a great article that covers everything you need to know about AT&T email server settings. Here are the settings we'd suggest:

To answer your next question, we do recommend creating a new secure mail key. Sometimes, third party email clients will require a new secure mail key to function properly, especially if the same one has been used for a while. 

It’s easy to create a secure mail key from your mobile device, tablet, or computer. Have your User ID and password ready to sign in to myAT&T.

1. Go to your myAT&T Profile. Sign in, if asked.
2. Scroll to My linked accounts, select the email account that needs a secure mail key.
3. Scroll to Secure mail key, select Manage secure mail key.
4. Choose the email address that you’d like to use, if you have more than one.
5. Select Add secure mail key. Enter a nickname for the secure mail key to make it easy to recognize.
6. Choose Create secure mail key.
7. Select Copy secure mail key to clipboard. Make a note of your secure mail key  for further updates.
   • For security purposes, the secure mail key only displays until you select OK. 
   • If you lose or forget the secure mail key, you can always create new secure mail keys.
8. Select OK.
9. Go to your preferred email app, replace the existing password with your secure mail key. For an IMAP account, delete the existing password for both the IMAP and SMTP servers. Replace them with your secure mail key.

Good to know: Each device you use to access your email will have its own secure mail key.

Let us know if you have any other questions. We'll be happy to get you some more answers. 

Lacey, AT&T Community Specialist  

Thanks for the input. 
However, I finally got through by phone to an actual tech person in AT&T Mobility Tech Support who indicated that they are aware of this issue regarding AT&T email Inbox sync issues with recent update(s) to Microsoft 365 Outlook for Mac and AT&T and Microsoft are looking into it.

He also said a Secure Mail Key that works to get access to pacbell.net should not be the problem. And he recommends give them up to a month to straighten it out

interestingly, this morning, I got the second of two Microsoft 365 auto-updates for Outlook for Mac within the past week. Haven’t had time to see if it addressed the Inbox concern over disappearing contents and the need to resync. (See my other post about the issue).

We shall see!

Still not working - even after two Outlook for Mac updates. Outlook for Mac dumps pacbell.net inbox contents if any one or more emails are deleted. One to two forced syncs gets the inbox contents to reload. (Meantime, all is well on the AT&T server, in Mac Mail, iOS Mail and even on the Outlook iOS app! All other IMAPs (Gmail, Comcast... work fine in Outlook for Mac).

And now AT&T tech who was working on this has not responded to my recent emails. On top of that, last month AT&T discontinued the paid Tech 360 service (which was quite helpful).

You'd think that a 25+ years AT& T customer could get some actual tech support.

@DrDPJZ, as this is something you are only experiencing through Outlook, and not through Currently, we would recommend reaching out to Outlook's support team for in depth support into this issue.

Thank you for reaching out to us at AT&T's Community Forums, if you need further assistance with your AT&T services do not hesitate to reach back out to us.

Daniel, AT&T Community Specialist

Well, I’ve tried in vain to get help from Microsoft Tech Support for my licensed Microsoft 365 Outlook for Mac. Two different case numbers so far with Techs that set up an appointment and then don’t call back.

I used to have paid AT&T Tech 360 support which was good but AT&T discontinued this service this past April. 
I’ve connected with AT&T Mobility but can’t get beyond the first level of support where the only answer you get is “we’re working on this issue with Microsoft.

In the meantime, the available articles online regarding communication between ATT/Yahoo email accounts and Outlook are all dated prior to what apparently has been a security upgrade at Yahoo in March 2023 (the most recent AT&T help articles about imap and outlook are all dated December 2022.

That said, there’s the additional issue that in Outlook for Mac, when you want to add a pacbell.net account, you are first asked for your email and, when you type in your pacbell.net address, it automatically uses yahoo IMAP settings (there is no “other” choice for entering the AT&T server settings unless you later go into the account settings and change them to AT&T (and oddly enough, on various other devices and mail apps, most also want you to use Yahoo). And, BTW, if you try Yahoo’s settings, there’s zero problems for pacbell.net in all mail apps on an iPhone including both iOS Mail and the Outlook mobile iOS app other than Outlook for Mac which doesn’t like either yahoo or AT&T settings as seen in the inbox content disappearance issue previously posted here.

Our next troubleshoot attempt will be to delete pacbell.net once again from Outlook for Mac and attempt another reinstall. But I have questions about that too. On one recent call to AT&T Mobility, the rep on the phone said “we don’t use “secure mail keys” anymore. And yet the December 2022 AT&T article says that, because Outlook for Mac doesn’t have OAuth, you need one.

So today’s question is:

Should I try yet another reinstall of pacbell.net imap account on Outlook for Mac using the auto assigned Yahoo IMAP settings (when you type in a pacbell.net address) and use a newly generated AT&T secure mail key as the password?
OR

Should I manually change the autogenerated yahoo IMAP settings to AT&T IMAP settings and enter the newly generated SMK as the password?
OR

Should I try just using the regular email password (no SMK) with either AT&T settings or Yahoo settings on Outlook for Mac. Remember that the December 2022 AT&T article says use SMK while one of the recent calls to AT&T Mobility says “we don’t use SMK anymore.”

Bottom line:

Question 1: will new SMK work with either AT&T IMAP or Yahoo IMAP on Outlook for Mac? 

Question 2: How does a continuous AT&T cellular service and email user (since “pacbell” days) and subscriber to paid AT&T tech support (whenever it’s been available over the past decade) get some actual live phone and, if needed, screen sharing tech support from AT&T?

Can I please get some legacy customer support beyond this chat forum?