Why is my iPad repeatedly asking for email passwords?

Deleting and re-adding your email account is sometimes the easiest way to resolve a problem with a specific Mail account. After deleting the account, perform a forced restart before re-adding the email account to your iPad.

• Delete account:

Settings > Mail > Accounts > [Your Mail Account] > Delete Account

• Force restart the iPad:

Force restart iPad - Apple Support

• Add Mail Account:

Settings > Mail > Add Account

Be aware that some email providers now require the use of App Specific Passwords when accessing mail over IMAP or POP3. If this applies to your email account, you will need to generate a unique password for your iPad email account - that will differ from your normal Account Password. As examples - Microsoft, AOL and Yahoo all use App Specific Passwords when using anything other than their own email client Apps.

For Microsoft accounts, you might also need to install and the Microsoft Authenticator App - and use this to authorise/authenticate your Microsoft credentials:

https://apps.apple.com/app/microsoft-authenticator/id983156458

If you need to generate an App Specific Password, you’ll need to log-in to your Mail Providers account management webpage - using a web browser - and generate the Password from the appropriate account security page:

Microsoft:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/account-billing/using-app-passwords-with-apps-that-don-t-support-two-step-verification-5896ed9b-4263-e681-128a-a6f2979a7944

AOL’s App Specific Passwords can be found here:

https://help.aol.com/articles/allow-apps-that-use-less-secure-sign-in?guccounter=1

For Yahoo, more information can be found here:

https://help.yahoo.com/kb/SLN27791.html

Google Mail (Gmail) has until recently also used App Specific passwords to access email - although this has now been deprecated in favour of OAuth authentication. Simply removing and re-adding the Gmail account from the Add Account wizard, selecting Google and following the prompts, will correctly configure the correct account settings.

Lawrence Finch wrote:

Have you considered making this a user tip?

I hadn't, but have now 🙂

Unable to Send or Receive email using the… - Apple Community

Are these Microsoft accounts? Microsoft has been re-certifying email accounts for the past few days.

I use an iPad Air 4 and for some time Both Hotmail and Outlook will not send email, saying the username or password for my Hotmail account is incorrect. I have gone into settings and re-entered the password with no luck.

Did you enter the password in both places (incoming and outgoing servers)?

However, the easiest way to fix it is to go to Settings/Mail (Settings/Apps/Mail if you have iOS 18), tap on accounts, then on the account with the problem and delete it. Then add it back.

Have you considered making this a user tip?