Automatic setup on Mac

Mac Mail, Calendar and Contacts apps need their own app password to access your information. If you use your normal password on an external account, syncing won't work and you will see a password error.

• Automatic setup tool
• Adding your other email addresses
• Setting up Notes
• Adding shared contacts in a multi-user account
• Updating your password
• Remove a Fastmail profile

Automatic setup tool

The easiest way to set up a Mac is to use our automatic setup tool, which will take care of the app password entry for you.

1. Log in to the Fastmail web interface on your device and go to the Settings → Privacy & Security screen.
2. Find the Connected apps & API tokens section. Click Manage app passwords and access.
3. Click New app password.
   • A Verify it's you box may appear. Enter your password and click Continue. (For more information, see our Password-protected actions help page.) 
4. Give your app password a name to indicate which device and app this password is for.
5. For the QR code setup, you will need to choose either the Mail, Contacts & Calendars access or the Mail (IMAP/POP/SMTP) access.
6. Click Generate password.

The following screen will show information about the app password that has been created. Click the link that says Open this configuration file. This will download the configuration file to set everything up on your Mac automatically.

1. Go to where the file was downloaded, and click on it to install the file. You'll see a notification telling you to review the file in your System Settings:
   • 

2. Go to System Settings, click Privacy & Security, then scroll down to Others and then Profiles. Double-click the newly downloaded profile, which will open a new window.

3. Examine the profile to make sure it has access to the options you require: email, contacts (CardDAV), and/or calendars (CalDAV). If everything looks good to you, click Install.

When you open your internet accounts list on your Mac, you'll see your accounts listed there. If you open the Profiles tool, you'll see a single entry for your Fastmail accounts.

Looking for instructions on how to manually set up Mail, Calendar, or Contacts?

Adding your other email addresses

To add addresses other than your username in Mac Mail:

1. In Mac Mail, go to Mail → Settings.
2. Select your Fastmail account on the left.
3. Click the Email address dropdown, then Edit email addresses.
4. On the following screen, click the + button to add a new address.
5. Click OK when done.

In MacOS prior to 10.11 (El Capitan), you will instead need to replace your Fastmail username with the address you wish to send from in the Email Address field. You can also enter multiple email addresses, separated by a comma. If you do this, Mail.app will let you choose which one you would like to use each time you compose a message.

Setting up Notes

Warning: The new Notes features are available to OS X 10.11/iOS 9 users only if you are using Apple's upgraded Notes with iCloud support. These extra features are not available if you are using IMAP based Notes through Fastmail. If you don't need the new features, then we recommend you do not upgrade Notes support: once upgraded, you can't go back. Once a note goes onto iCloud, Fastmail will no longer be able to synchronize with it.

If your Mac is set up to access mail, contacts, and calendars, you can also add Notes support.

1. Open Mail, go Mail → Preferences and select the Accounts tab to view your list of Accounts.
2. Select your Fastmail account.
3. Enable the Notes option in the toggle.

Adding shared contacts in a multi-user account

Mac Mail only supports a single contact list. Therefore, when setting up using automatic profile configuration, only the personal contacts will be synced.

For users in a multi-user account, you can set up shared contacts by following these steps:

1. In Mac Mail, open Contacts and go to Contacts → Add Account.
2. Select Other Contacts Account... and click Continue.
3. Leave the Account Type on CardDAV and Automatic.
4. Enter your username as username+Shared@domain.com (substituting your Fastmail username and domain accordingly) and enter your app password.
5. Click Sign In.

Updating your password

If you change your Mac Mail password after adding your Fastmail account to Mail.app, you will need to update the settings. The easiest way to update is to delete the profile off your Mac and use the automatic setup tool to generate a new password and store it on your Mac.

If you'd prefer to update your passwords manually: Mail, Calendar, and Contacts.

Remove a Fastmail profile

To delete the Fastmail account from your Mac, you will need to remove the profile. You can remove it by following these steps:

1. Open System Preferences.
2. Go to Internet Accounts.
3. Select the Fastmail profile and use the - button to remove the profile.

This will remove Fastmail from the list of internet accounts on that Mac.