Accessing a Shared Mailbox in Apple Mail

Owned by Brian Lassy Jr
Last updated: Feb 13, 2024 by A.J. Newman
2 min read

This article is for students, faculty, and staff at all UConn campuses who want to access a shared mailbox in Apple Mail on Mac. These instructions are not meant for Microsoft 365 Web Access. This article applies to existing shared mailboxes. To create a new shared mailbox, contact the Technology Support Center.

Apple Mail is not supported by ITS. If you choose to use this method to connect to a shared mailbox, support options may be limited.

Students who are given access to a shared mailbox must log in using their work accounts rather than their school accounts. Work accounts will either be in the form of NetIDwork (abc12345work@uconn.edu) or student#### (student1234@ad.uconn.edu).

  1. Open Apple Mail.

  2. In the menu bar, navigate to Mail > Add Account...

  3. Click the radio button for the Other Mail Account... option. Click Continue.

  4. Fill out the fields as listed below and click Sign In.
    Name: any name you want
    Email Address: your.email@uconn.edu/shared_mailbox_name@uconn.edu
    Password: your personal NetID password

  5. You should now see a new dialogue box to add the shared mailbox with the message "Unable to verify account name or password." This is normal; you now have access to the extra configuration options, so fill them out as follows:
    Email Address: (leave as is)
    User Name: (leave as is)
    Password: (leave as is)
    Account Type: IMAP
    Incoming Mail Server: outlook.office365.com
    Outgoing Mail Server: smtp.office365.com

  6. You will be asked which apps should use this account; mail is the only necessary one for this task. 

    mail app

  7. The mailbox will be added to the Mail client, but you will not be able to send mail. To continue setup, go to Mail > Preferences.

    Go to the Mail menu once again and select Preferences.

  8. In the Accounts menu, click on the account you just created (default name is "UConn"). In the Email Address field, click the dropdown and select Edit Email Addresses...

  9. Double click on the email address to edit that field. Remove your.email@uconn.edu/ so that only the name of the shared mailbox remains. Click OK.

  10. On the Accounts screen, navigate to the Server Settings tab along the top. Under the Outgoing Mail Server (SMTP) section, add your firstname.lastname@uconn.edu email as the User Name and click Save. The final settings should appear as below:

  11. You can now exit the Account Preferences menu and return to Apple Mail.

To send email from the shared mailbox, click the drop down arrow next to the “From” field when composing a new message.

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