Fix problems with internet accounts after upgrading OS X

InternetAccountsIconXWhen you upgrade OS X, the accounts you have configured in the Internet Accounts system preferences should migrate and be just as usable as they were before upgrading. However, there may be times when calendars won’t load, e-mail messages may be missing, or you otherwise cannot access your accounts. While specific problems can be individually investigated, if they are nondescript and affect multiple accounts, you can try re-migrating your user account from a backup.

This procedure can be done using either a Time Machine backup, or a system clone, so hopefully you created a full backup of your Mac before upgrading your system. However, if not then this procedure will not be doable. Also note that this procedure will remove your user account and all data in it, so it is imperative that you have the backup.

  1. Open the Users & Groups system preferences
  2. Create a new administrative user account
  3. Log out of your current account
  4. Log into the new administrative account
  5. Go back to the Users & Groups system preferences
  6. Select your old user account and delete it
  7. Select the option to remove the user’s home folder
  8. Open the Migration Assistant utility (in Applications > Utilities)
  9. Follow the instructions to migrate your data to your Mac
  10. Attach your backup drive and select it as the migration source
  11. Select your old user account to migrate, and proceed with the migration

When done, your old user account should be restored to your system, with all data and settings intact except for some caches and temporary files. Now go to the Users & Groups system preferences and be sure the restored account has administrative access, and then log out of your temporary admin account and into your old one.

The final step is to ensure your internet accounts migrated correctly, which can be done by running Apple’s internet accounts migration utility from the command line. To do this, copy and paste the following into the Terminal, and then press Enter to run it:

/System/Library/InternetAccounts/internetAccountsMigrator

When run, you should see the command locate various accounts and run some processing routines on them. After this, you can try opening Mail or other programs that use these accounts, and hopefully they should now work properly.

4 thoughts on “Fix problems with internet accounts after upgrading OS X”

  1. B. Jefferson Le Blanc

    I haven’t had this problem (yet) but it’s a good technique to remember. So I saved it—probably not for the first time. 😉 In fact, it might serve in a number of situations where a user folder gets corrupted for one reason or another.

  2. shijith

    My calender is basically not getting suynchronized after upgrading to 10.11.This is basically a exchange account.

  3. Dave G

    My iCloud internet account works fine. Its my Cox “pop” accounts the it will not access. When I try to access those accounts in the internet account window an additional window comes up continually asking for its password. When I put in the correct password it says – “Unable to verify username or password” — bummer…..

    1. Chris O

      I’m having the same problem as Dave G – I can fill in the correct information for Facebook, Twitter etc., but it will not verify. Any ideas on how to fix?

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