The external access is secured with a self-signed SSL certificate. Unless you import the certificate into your Keychain you get endless annoying error messages. And importing it wasn’t as easy as you might expect.

In the end, I offered to write up a walk-through for other Mac users in the College, and I’m posting it here too. It’s all documented in Apple Mail‘s help file under “I’m getting a certificate-related error message” but visual learners will appreciate the pictures.

How to accept a self-signed SSL certificate in Mail.app permanently (with screenshots) after the jump.

When you try to connect to an IMAP server that uses a self-signed SSL certificate for the first time in Apple Mail, you will get the following alert message:

Don’t click “Continue”. Click on the “Show Certificate” button. You will see the following dialog box:

Click on the picture of the certificate and drag it to your Desktop.

Double click on the file ending with the extension “cer” on your Desktop. An application called Keychain Access will then open and you will see the following dialog box:

Click on the Keychain drop-down menu and the following options will appear:

Select “X509Anchors” and then “OK”. You will be asked to type in the Administrator password for your Mac. Do that, then you’re done! The certificate is now permanently stored in your Keychain.

You can then return to the very first “Unable to Connect” dialog box and click on “Continue”.

You will now be able to access the IMAP server without constant error messages.Similar Posts:

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