After the massive hack in 2014 that saw millions of customers’ personal details stolen, has Yahoo betrayed your trust for the final time? Mike Plant explains what you need to do before ditching the email service for good
Yahoo has been in hot water of late. First, it admitted – after two years – that hackers had breached its security and stolen the account details of 500 million of its customers in 2014. Then there were allegations that the company secretly scanned its customers’ emails on behalf of US intelligence (www.snipca.com/22184).
These two calamities have seriously dented users’ faith in Yahoo – to the point where many are closing their accounts (www.snipca.com/22191). If you are a Yahoo customer and have decided you want to move to another email service you might be concerned that you’ll lose all your emails and contacts. You needn’t worry. Here we’ll explain how to close your Yahoo account, while transferring your emails, contacts and calendar entries to an email service of your choice.
Transfer your emails to Gmail
Log into your Gmail account and click the settings icon (the cog at the top right), then Settings, ‘Accounts and Import’ and ‘Import mail and contacts’. Enter your Yahoo email address in the pop-up window and click Continue, then Continue again (you might be prompted to allow pop-ups at this stage, so click ‘Allow once’).
A second pop-up window will appear showing the Yahoo login screen. Enter your Yahoo email address and click Next, then enter your password and click ‘Sign in’, Agree then close the pop-up window when prompted. The transfer can take a couple of days to complete (depending on how many emails and contacts you are moving). You can check on its its progress by going to ‘Accounts and Import’ in Settings. The import message will disappear when the transfer is complete.
Save your emails to a client
You can also transfer existing and redirect future Yahoo emails to an email program such as Windows 10’s Mail app, eM Client, Outlook and the mail app on your tablet or phone. Try doing this, however, and Yahoo will block these services gaining access to your emails, claiming that each is “an app that uses less secure sign-in”. You can overcome Yahoo’s obstructive tactics by going to www.snipca.com/22203, where you’ll be prompted to sign into Yahoo. Next, move the ‘Allow apps that use less secure sign in’ slider to the right.
With this done open your new email program and add your Yahoo account. In eM Client, for example, click Menu, Tools and Accounts, then click the plus (+) button. Click the arrow to the right of Mail, choose Yahoo from the list and click Next. Enter your Yahoo email address and password in the relevant boxes and click Next, then Next again. Leave the three boxes ticked and click Finish. This will not only migrate your emails to eM Client, but your contacts and calendar events as well.
Import Yahoo using IMAP
Some email programs, such as Outlook, require you to add your account using IMAP. To do this, in Outlook click File, Add Account and click the ‘Manual setup or additional server types’ button then Next. Select ‘POP or IMAP’, click Next, then enter your details in the blank fields. Enter your name and Yahoo email address in the User Information section, choose IMAP from the Account Type dropdown and type imap.mail.yahoo.com into the ‘Incoming mail server’ box and smtp.mail.yahoo.com where it says ‘Outgoing mail server’ (SMTP). Your username is your email address minus the ‘@yahoo.com’ suffix and the password is the one you use for Yahoo. Ensure the ‘Mail to keep offline slider’ is moved all the way to the right (so it says All). Next, click the More Settings button, click the Outgoing Server tab, then tick ‘My outgoing server (SMTP)’ requires authentication’ (leave ‘Use same settings as my incoming mail server’ selected). Click the Advanced tab and enter 993 into the ‘Incoming server (IMAP)’ box, 465 into the ‘Outgoing server (SMTP) box and select SSL from both dropdown menus. Finally, click OK and then Next to add your Yahoo emails to Outlook.
Export your contacts
You can never be too careful with your contacts, which is why we suggest you back them up before deleting your Yahoo account. To save your contacts as a CSV file, log into Yahoo Mail, then click Contacts, Actions, then Export. When the Export Contacts window opens, choose Microsoft Outlook, then click Export Now. A CSV file will be saved to your PC, which you can import into your new email program.
Back up your calendar
It’s important you also back up any appointments, reminders and events in your Yahoo calender. Click the Calendar icon, then click the down arrow to the right of where it says ‘My calendar’ and click Export.
Click Export in the pop-up window to save your calendar as an ICS file that can be imported into any other online calendar, including Outlook and Google Calendar.
The final step
With your Yahoo account fully backed up it’s time to wave it goodbye – or is it? We suggest you leave that final step for a month or two to give you time to inform anyone who needs to know your new email address (friends, family, banks, internet service provider and so on).
Once you feel you can safely leave Yahoo, go to www.snipca.com/22204 and log in using your Yahoo details when prompted. You’ll now see information about the implications of closing your account, which we suggest you read carefully because you’ll lose other Yahoo services, such as Flickr. Once you’re happy, enter your password in the box, type the captcha and click the ‘Terminate this Account’ button. Finally, sit back and breathe a sigh of relief.
SAVE YOUR FLICKR PHOTOS
Deleting your Yahoo Mail account will also erase your Flickr account (this “cannot be undone”). This means any photos you have uploaded to the service will be removed. How to save them (which means downloading them) depends on how many you have uploaded. If you only have a few, the easiest way is to log into Flickr (www.flickr.com), click Camera Roll, then change the ‘Date taken’ dropdown to ‘Date uploaded’. Click every ‘Select all’ link on the screen, then click Download.
If you have hundreds or thousands of photos, you should use Bulkr (http://getbulkr.com). Download and install it (note: Adobe Air will be installed as a necessary extra program too), then click ‘Connect to Flickr’. Enter your Yahoo details and authorise its access when prompted, then go back to Bulkr and click ‘Backup your photostream’. Follow the instructions to save all your photos to your PC (choose Original in the size dropdown menu to get the best quality images possible).