How to backup Yahoo! emails

Summary

This article explains how to backup the emails stored online in your Yahoo! account.

On this page:

The applications you need
How to configure Thunderbird email client
How to configure Backup4all

Details

Before backing up the yahoo mails, you need to download them to a local folder. In order to do that, you would need to configure your Yahoo mail account as a POP3 one. As Yahoo does not offer such an option for free, you need an application (YPOPs!) that emulates a POP3 account allowing you to download all your yahoo emails locally. When the emails are in a local folder you can back them up using Backup4all.

The applications you need

1. First, you need to have Backup4all 4 installed. You can download it from this download link
2. Second, you need to download and install YPOPs! from this download link
3. If you don't use already an email client (such as Outlook Express or MS Outlook) you need to download and install one as Mozilla Thunderbird is (open source) from this download link

How to configure Thunderbird email client After YPOPS! is installed you will need to configure Thunderbird so that it will include your Yahoo Mail account as a POP3 email account. This way all your emails will be downloaded from Yahoo Mail locally. If you want to keep a copy of your email messages on Yahoo Mail too, make sure the option "Leave a copy of messages on server" is enabled. To configure Thunderbird with YPOPS!:

1. Click Tools-> Account Settings
2. Click Add Account button.
3. Choose Email Account. Click Next
4. Type name and email address in the boxes. Click Next
5. Choose POP and type 'localhost' as the incoming server.
6. Depending on your preferences check or uncheck Use Global Inbox
7. Click Next. If your username is not already there by default, add it.
8. Click Next. Add the way you want your Account Name to look in Thunderbird.
9. Click Finish.
10. Now scroll down to the bottom of the Account Settings pane and click on Outgoing server (SMTP).
11. Click on Advanced. Click on Add.
12. Type 127.0.0.1 as the outgoing mail server. Port default is 25.
13. Check Use name and password. This is Thunderbird’s way of enabling authentication.
14. Type your Yahoo user name as username@yahoo.com
15. Click No to Use secure connection and then OK twice.
16. Click OK to the Server Settings window.
17. Now get back into Account Settings
18. Go back to the Server Settings of you Yahoo Account in the Account Settings pane.
19. Do not check Use secure connection (SSL) or Use secure authentication.
20. Click on Advanced.
21. Choose where you want your emails to go in the POP tab.
22. Click on the SMTP tab and click on the drop down menu and select 127.0.0.1:25
23. Continue modifying any of your preferences in the account and then click on OK.

The first time you try to access the account, Thunderbird will ask for the password.
You can set Thunderbird to remember the password.

How to configure Backup4all

1. Download the Thunderbird plugin for Backup4all from this download link
2. Install the plugin in Backup4all: go to Tools->Plugins->Add
3. Go to File->New Backup
4. Type a name for your backup in the Backup name field
5. Choose a location where you want to save the backup. Press Next
6. From the Selection of files and folders list, choose Thunderbird. Press Next
7. Choose how do you want to backup
8. Press Save and choose Save and run

Applies to:

Backup4all 4
YPOPs! 0.9.5.8 or higher
Mozilla Thunderbird 2