Changing Email Accounts

glennhoffmania

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I've used Yahoo for the last 15 years or so and I never really thought of switching.  But all of the changes they're making to the email and front page are really awful.  I've been waiting to see if they improve it at all but it doesn't look like it's happening.  So I think I'm ready to shift everything to my Gmail account.  I only have it because of Android and I've never used the email for anything else.
 
My concerns are that I'll have to keep checking Yahoo anyway since I won't remember to tell everyone who ever emails me that I switched, and that I have my Yahoo email associated with all of my online accounts for everything.  I'm hoping the first issue can be resolved by forwarding email to my Gmail but I honestly don't trust the functionality of Yahoo at this point to not fuck it up.  The second issue will be a pain in the ass but I can eventually change everything to Yahoo as I think of them.
 
Has anyone made a switch, have any advice, tricks, etc.?  I keep thinking this isn't a big deal until I go through the list of everything associated with Yahoo.  It's like most of my life is connected to this email address and I'm sure I'm going to forget a few things.
 

Corsi

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Does Yahoo allow for auto-replies?  i.e. "I have changed email addresses.  Please contact me at glennhoffmania@gmail.com."
 
At this point, I think it's something you have to do.  Gmail is just that good.
 

glennhoffmania

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Corsi said:
Does Yahoo allow for auto-replies?  i.e. "I have changed email addresses.  Please contact me at glennhoffmania@gmail.com."
 
At this point, I think it's something you have to do.  Gmail is just that good.
I'd assume so but since half their shit doesn't work these days I don't know how much it would help.  Worth a shot though.
 
soxhop411 said:
https://support.google.com/mail/answer/164640?hl=en
 
follow those steps to transfer your mail (I think it moves all of it) to your gmail account.
This is cool, thanks.  I hadn't even thought about moving all of the old emails I need to save.
 

soxhop411

news aggravator
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Dec 4, 2009
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Corsi said:
Does Yahoo allow for auto-replies?  i.e. "I have changed email addresses.  Please contact me at glennhoffmania@gmail.com."
 
At this point, I think it's something you have to do.  Gmail is just that good.
This works well with "live" email addresses, but then you will be getting a lot of postmaster emails sent to your gmail when it tries to reply to no-reply email addresses
 

LoweTek

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If you don't like Yahoo's interface use a mail client such as Outlook or Windows Mail and you'll never have to look at the Yahoo interface again.
 

glennhoffmania

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LoweTek said:
If you don't like Yahoo's interface use a mail client such as Outlook or Windows Mail and you'll never have to look at the Yahoo interface again.
This may be a dumb question, but how well would that work on my phone?  I do at least half of my emailing on my phone and I've never thought of using Outlook on it. 
 

mt8thsw9th

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It would still be Yahoo on your phone. Outlook is just an app to view emails, so you'd be using whatever app on your phone reads emails.
 

glennhoffmania

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Ah ok.  So then my issue becomes what to do on my computer, because the Yahoo web pages are awful.  And even if I could use Outlook on my computer I still want to change to another service for things like my portfolio, news, weather, etc.  I think my best bet is a switch to Google.  Are any other Yahoo users as fed with as I am?
 

d.ro.ho

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Mar 27, 2007
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My wife was looking into this same thing and I believe that you have to pay Yahoo ~$20 a year to enable the functionality like POP3 or IMAP that would let you download your mail to Outlook or MacMail on a desktop, or even to sync it through Gmail. I think for mobile devices it is free, for some reason. If you look around, there are some suggested tricks on how to get around this, but it seems like it could be a pain in the ass. Not that $20 is prohibitive, but I was surprised they charge for it.
 

bohous

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Jul 21, 2005
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glennhoffmania said:
Ah ok.  So then my issue becomes what to do on my computer, because the Yahoo web pages are awful.  And even if I could use Outlook on my computer I still want to change to another service for things like my portfolio, news, weather, etc.  I think my best bet is a switch to Google.  Are any other Yahoo users as fed with as I am?
 
Why do you feel that you have to use their web pages just because you use their email? I have a Yahoo email but aside from the fantasy site I rarely visit a Yahoo site for anything else. 
 
I'm in a similar position though. I set up my Yahoo account to be strictly a dumping ground for when I had to do any kind of online registration that might generate a lot of spam. I also have a Hotmail that was my original personal account, then I set up a Gmail to use "professionally" (mostly for when I was sending out resumes) and I also have a work account via Outlook Exchange. Yahoo is the one I would most like to dump but I'm just locked in without having to update a bajillion sites I registered using my Yahoo. Some of which I still need, although infrequently.
 
I really don't find the new Yahoo email UI that bad once you set your theme and preferences. My biggest complaint with both Yahoo and Gmail is the inability to sort by sender, 
 

SumnerH

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Yahoo has free IMAP these days. I always access my old Yahoo account through a real email client because their web interface blows.
 

glennhoffmania

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bohous said:
 
Why do you feel that you have to use their web pages just because you use their email? I have a Yahoo email but aside from the fantasy site I rarely visit a Yahoo site for anything else. 
 
I'm in a similar position though. I set up my Yahoo account to be strictly a dumping ground for when I had to do any kind of online registration that might generate a lot of spam. I also have a Hotmail that was my original personal account, then I set up a Gmail to use "professionally" (mostly for when I was sending out resumes) and I also have a work account via Outlook Exchange. Yahoo is the one I would most like to dump but I'm just locked in without having to update a bajillion sites I registered using my Yahoo. Some of which I still need, although infrequently.
 
I really don't find the new Yahoo email UI that bad once you set your theme and preferences. My biggest complaint with both Yahoo and Gmail is the inability to sort by sender, 
You're right, I don't have to use them.  I'd just prefer to have everything in one place, set up my home page with the stuff I need, and not have to jump around.  I'm assuming that other sites have decent enough news, sports, weather and finance info like Yahoo used to have. 
 
My main issue is really the email functionality.  It really sucks since they've made all of these changes.  Like when I type in an address that's in my contacts it doesn't autofill anymore.  When I click on an email from the home page it instead takes me to my inbox.  Plus all of the issues I've had with Android.  So I figured, since it's not like I'm in love with Yahoo's news service or weather or sports section (which actually really sucks now), if I'm going to switch to my Gmail account why not use Google for everything else too.
 
What happens when iGoogle goes away?  Will you still be able to set up a decent home page?
 

SumnerH

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From their help pages:
 

Use these settings when configuring IMAP
Incoming Server: imap.mail.yahoo.com
Outgoing Server: smtp.mail.yahoo.com
Incoming Port (requires SSL): 993
Outgoing SMTP Port (requires SSL/TLS): 465, 587, or 25.
- It is necessary to enable SSL or TLS for the outgoing port.
Requires authentication: Yes.
Username: full Yahoo email address (for example, free2rhyme@yahoo.com).
Password: the password you use to sign in to your Yahoo Account.
 
Should work with any even remotely modern email client.
 

glennhoffmania

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If Eddie agrees with me then I must be on to something here.
 
And Sumner, thanks for that.  I have those settings but I regularly get login errors when my email syncs.  Only with Yahoo though.
 

LoweTek

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Don't use 25 for the SMTP port. Use one of the other options. Some ISPs block 25. This could be your issue with login errors.
 

cardiacs

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Jul 15, 2005
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SumnerH said:
Yahoo has free IMAP these days. I always access my old Yahoo account through a real email client because their web interface blows.
 
Holy shit. This is a revelation to me. I also hate the new Yahoo (everything they have done in the last year or so) but was reluctant to change since I have had the same email for over 10 years now. I love Thunderbird and I just set it up with my yahoo account without typing anything except my email address and password. Thank you!
 

threecy

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Sep 1, 2006
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Yahoo is a disaster.
 
I've been using Yahoo Small Business and its predecessor, Simple|Net (where I hosted the 'Red Sox Nation' site, if anyone remembers that...LaternJaw was a forum mod there pre-SoSH) for about 15 years.  Even after the merger, the hosting was great and the e-mail interface functional.  Since then, just about literally every time they "improve" something, it becomes dramatically worse.
 
Up until midway through this year, they left the old "classic" e-mail interface available hidden via a long URL.  It still worked decently on slow connections/old browsers/mobile.  Then in a stroke of brilliance, they sunset that and pushed everything over this new interface, which they subsequently blocked from mobile use.
 
Of course, if you have an Android, they have no app for their business e-mail.  So, since they block you from using the web mail, the only way you can get your e-mail on an Android is via POP3, etc.  Trouble with that is that they have essentially zero sever side spam filtering, so in my case POP3 pulls in a flood of spam 24X7.  And any feedback you give Yahoo falls on deaf ears.
 
As soon as I can find the time to pull down years of archived web mail sent messages and a few old MySQL DBs, I plan to yank the rest of my accounts off the disaster that is Yahoo.
 

AlNipper49

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It's funny that the main complaint about Yahoo is the interface where the one behind the changes was so highly regarded basically based on interface-design alone. Maybe she can't manage people or donething
 

glennhoffmania

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FWIW, I don't use 25 for the SMTP port.  I'm still having random problems on my phone.  Login errors pop up a couple of times per day, when my login info is clearly correct.  According to the Sprint techies it's a problem with Yahoo because they only want you to use their app and it has nothing to do with Sprint, HTC, Android, or anything else.  Yahoo used to be the simplest and most reliable in my opinion.  Now it's not even close to either.  Reading the comments in the feedback section is pretty entertaining though.
 

threecy

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Sep 1, 2006
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The continuing disaster that is Yahoo Mail...
Load times have been horrible over the past three days and I've been receiving 2-3 copies of each e-mail, each a few hours apart.
Then, when you go to the Contact Customer Care area, it forces you through menus without resolution and never lets you contact anyone!
If I can only figure out a way to pull all of my archived sent mail off their servers.
 

cardiacs

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threecy said:
The continuing disaster that is Yahoo Mail...
Load times have been horrible over the past three days and I've been receiving 2-3 copies of each e-mail, each a few hours apart.
Then, when you go to the Contact Customer Care area, it forces you through menus without resolution and never lets you contact anyone!
If I can only figure out a way to pull all of my archived sent mail off their servers.
 
When I loaded up my yahoo account onto Thunderbird, all of my archived mail was copied there, including sent, deleted, and spam. 
 

threecy

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cardiacs said:
 
When I loaded up my yahoo account onto Thunderbird, all of my archived mail was copied there, including sent, deleted, and spam. 
I'm going to try again and look at the settings, but Thunderbird only pulled in my inbox.  Years ago, I was forced to move a bunch of mail into folders, due to another crappy "improved" web mail interface (support told me I shouldn't have more than like 1,000 e-mails in my inbox).  I'm also using the Business version, so the configuration is slightly different (basically I pay more to get worse service).
 

threecy

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Today I can't even get into my Yahoo Business E-Mail.  I finally found a way to navigate the Help Section to actually get to Customer Support.
 
My option?  "Request a call"
Estimated callback time?  238 minutes!
 
 

glennhoffmania

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Yahoo seems to only be getting worse.  It took me about 10 tries to download an attachment.  Some emails I send now say sender unknown so the recipient is afraid to open it.  I can't simply email a link because they require a certain amount of text before they allow you to send it.  The auto-fill function for addresses in your contacts still doesn't work.  It's gotten to the point where even basic email functions don't work.  How can they let it get this bad?
 

zenter

indian sweet
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Oct 11, 2005
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AlNipper49 said:
It's funny that the main complaint about Yahoo is the interface where the one behind the changes was so highly regarded basically based on interface-design alone. Maybe she can't manage people or donething
 
It's both, actually...
 
1) People tend to like what they're used to, and the new Yahoo mail design is jarring. The new design is more Gmail-like and loses a bunch of clutter, but it also loses some of what Yahoo-loyalists were loyal to. This is not dissimilar to the problems former Apple exec Ron Johnson had as CEO of JCP before his ouster. Appealing to new customers can put you at odds with existing customers if done poorly. Which leads to...
 
2) Mayer, while an overall PR/stock price positive for Yahoo, is not well-loved within her company or with partners. This is very inside-baseball, but word is she has run roughshod over very functional and successful teams in equal measure to the dysfunctional and unsuccessful teams. Her executive team constantly moves goalposts with external actors, which is making agencies and content partners more gunshy about working with Yahoo. To be fair, she's made a lot of solid decisions and is the best CEO they've had in a while, but she's not the slam-dunk she appears to be.
 
To glenn's issue, I think your advice is best:
 
1) Get a domain, e.g., glennhoffmania.com
2) Setup a redirect email address (or three).
3) Have them redirect to wherever he likes.
4) Send auto-replies with new email address.
 

glennhoffmania

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Honestly, if the interface was the only issue I'd suck it up and get used to it eventually.  The thing simply isn't reliable anymore.  People won't open emails because the sender is listed as "Me" instead of the real name.  Your contacts are basically useless.  Attachments don't go through.  Just today I had to send a form to an insurance company and the guy replied saying he gets an error message trying to open it so I had to resend it from my work email.  These are more than minor annoyances.  The shit is broken.
 

zenter

indian sweet
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Oct 11, 2005
5,641
Astoria, NY
glennhoffmania said:
Honestly, if the interface was the only issue I'd suck it up and get used to it eventually.  The thing simply isn't reliable anymore.  People won't open emails because the sender is listed as "Me" instead of the real name.  Your contacts are basically useless.  Attachments don't go through.  Just today I had to send a form to an insurance company and the guy replied saying he gets an error message trying to open it so I had to resend it from my work email.  These are more than minor annoyances.  The shit is broken.
 
I didn't realize it was that bad. It sounds like the changes are a serious case of lipstick on a pig with a degenerative disease. Either that or they want to force people into paying for reliable service. Neither is exactly a winning strategy.
 
On a scale of 1-10 (10 being hardcore coding/tech master, 1 being luddite), Nip's idea of registering a domain is like one step above being an everyday internet user - probably at 5 or so for a first-timer. Most registrars have this as a built-in option, and some even offer have unlimited free email addresses.
 
I use Gmail exclusively, but I've played with Outlook.com and it's quite simple/straightforward. Play with both and choose, knowing the redirect solution means you never have to send a change of email address again.
 

cardiacs

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I set up Yahoo Mail on Thunderbird at home no problem - auto settings worked fine. 
At work, I already use Thunderbird for my work email address. When I tried to set up Yahoo as a second account I continue to get errors: 
I used the below as guidance. Any ideas as to why I can't set Yahoo up as a second account?
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Incoming Server: imap.mail.yahoo.com
Outgoing Server: smtp.mail.yahoo.com
Incoming Port (requires SSL): 993
Outgoing SMTP Port (requires SSL/TLS): 465 or 587
- It is necessary to enable SSL or TLS for the outgoing port.
Requires authentication: Yes.
Username: full Yahoo email address (for example, free2rhyme@yahoo.com).
Password: the password you use to sign in to your Yahoo Account.