How To Set Up iCloud Mail With 2-Factor Authentication On Your Android Device

If you’re an Android user who lost access to your iCloud mail when Apple recently instituted 2-factor authentication, this article can help!

As you may know, I’m a long-time Apple user that switched from iPhone to Android a few years ago. Everything was going swimmingly until I was forced to add 2-factor authentication to my Apple account on June 15th. Once that happened, my iCloud mail account no longer synced with the mail client on my Android phone. Each time I’d try to validate the account, I’d get a message stating that my account username and/or password were incorrect. I knew this wasn’t the case, because I had just logged in to my iCloud account on my Apple device. I was stumped.

When Apple Mail No Longer Works on Your Android

I googled the issue, but couldn’t seem to find any help articles about my problem; all I could find were posts about accessing Gmail through the Apple mail client (the opposite of my problem!). I called Apple Support, but they weren’t any help. They were convinced that my mobile provider was blocking the 2-factor authentication code, so I decided to do some more digging on my own. 

After a bit of searching, I came upon an Apple support article about using app-specific passwords with third-party (i.e. non-Apple) apps, which led me to the solution. 

Using Apple 2-Factor Authentication With Gmail

I realized why I was getting the “incorrect user name and/or password” error message when trying to set up my iCloud mail account on my Android. Each third-party app – in this case, Gmail – requires a separate password in order to work with 2-factor authentication.  

Here’s How To Do It

Step 1: If you haven’t done so already, turn on 2-step authentication in your iCloud preferences.

Step 2: Log in to the Apple ID page, and click on “Generate Password…” under App-specific Passwords and name it accordingly (see below).

Step 3: Click on “Create” and you’ll be presented with a password; make note of it, then start the process of adding your iCloud email account to your Android mail client. (On your Android device, click on your mail client, then go to “Settings” > “Add account”, then choose the kind of mail (in this case, “Other”), and follow the prompts.

Step 4: After entering your account username (your iCloud email address), you’ll need to enter the Apple-generated password in the field that asks for your mail password. Forgo using your usual email account password; the app-specific password is the key to getting your iCloud Mail account to sync with your Android mail client. 

If you have any questions, feel free to ask them in the comments below. I hope this is helpful!