Should I pay for Yahoo Mail Plus?

[Jorpho]

I've been using Yahoo Mail for a long, long time now, such that I'd be reluctant to abandon my address. Actually, I was almost driven to do so recently when it seemed like the Search function was failing to work correctly (if at all) on an increasingly frequent basis, but since I switched to the new Yahoo Mail (i.e. away from Yahoo Mail Classic) it's been working quite splendidly. In fact, I'm actually kind of impressed with the new Yahoo Mail; it was painfully, excruciatingly slow when it first came out, but it's quite zippy now.

But I'm thinking of ponying up the $20 for POP3 access, for two reasons. One is that it would let me do a proper backup of my stored messages. I tried YahooPops once a long, long time ago and wasn't at all impressed with it; in particular, it seemed to incongruously archive only sender names but not sender addresses. I've also heard suggestions that apparently Yahoo does offer a free IMAP server, but after my last encounter with IMAP I've been kind of wary of it - I like to think of my local copy of my messages as a completely separate entity from the server copy.

The other big reason is that during the day lately I find myself on a network that blocks Yahoo Mail explicitly, but still allows access to GMail. With a POP3 server, I could access my Yahoo messages from GMail.

Given this reasoning, is there any reason I shouldn't pay for Yahoo Mail Plus? Or are there other alternatives that will let me do what I want without costing so much money?

(I get the feeling that as soon as I pay up, Yahoo will decide to join the rest of the world and make POP3 access free for all.)

[headprogrammingczar]

I suggest switching over to GMail entirely. $20 is overpriced for any email account anywhere, no matter the featureset.

[Vault]

Gmail also has a feature that can retrieve mail from a yahoo account, as well as sending mail from it. It also can bring all your contacts and stuff over. It's really quite nice.

[Jorpho]

Somehow I missed that the import feature could bring over messages as well as contacts. I suppose that would let me back everything up locally, at least. But I should add that I really can't stand GMail's conversation view.

Isn't there some other service that could let me access my Yahoo account?

[PhoenixEnigma]

Somehow I missed that the import feature could bring over messages as well as contacts. I suppose that would let me back everything up locally, at least. But I should add that I really can't stand GMail's conversation view.

Isn't there some other service that could let me access my Yahoo account?

If GMail can import your Yahoo messages, you can then use pretty much whatever POP3 (or IMAP, I believe) client you'd like to view them from there. A quick Googling shows up several web based POP3 clients as well, if that's what floats your boat.

On the other hand, as long as GMail pulls the messages non-destructively, you could just use that to keep a backup and provide POP3 access when needed, and continue using the normal Yahoo interface the rest of the time.

[Jorpho]

On the other hand, as long as GMail pulls the messages non-destructively

Yeah, it doesn't look that way.

If GMail can import your Yahoo messages, you can then use pretty much whatever POP3 (or IMAP, I believe) client you'd like to view them from there. A quick Googling shows up several web based POP3 clients as well, if that's what floats your boat.

Interesting. http://www.google.com/Top/Computers/Int ... P3_Access/ turns up http://www.netmymail.com/v3/, which does claim to access Yahoo directly. But is it reliable?

If someone could suggest something in particular, I'd rather not have to experiment with having to sign up for accounts at a bunch of places first.

[phillipsjk]

Code: Select all

james@test:~$ apt-cache search yahoo mail
fetchyahoo - Retrieve mail from Yahoo!'s webmail service
htdig - WWW search system for an intranet or small internet
yahoo2mbox - Retrieve and store Yahoo! Groups messages
james@test:~$


If I move away from Yahoo! again, plan to copy&paste the messages to text files like I did last time (When they temporarily dropped lynx support).

[headprogrammingczar]

POP3 is always destructive, but GMail does IMAP too, as does nearly every POP3 client.

[Jorpho]

POP3 is always destructive, but GMail does IMAP too

Isn't it the other way around? Most POP3 clients I've seen at least provide the option of leaving messages on the server, but I had the impression that the whole point to IMAP was that the client would do its darndest to make sure that the local copy reflects the server copy and vice versa.

Anyway, whatever GMail's Import feature uses, it's evidently not POP3.

[tendays]

POP3 isn't "always" destructive. The protocol, and most clients, support leaving mails on servers (now, some servers may choose to ignore that request). IMAP clients normally don't touch the server (apart from marking mails as seen) unless you tell them to, and usually download only those messages you request, unlike POP clients that tend to download everything.
Most IMAP clients let you copy the mails on your machine on to another email server.

Regarding Yahoo I have a feeling they only allow pop/imap access if you buy the "plus". Also I've noticed it depends on regions (e.g. yahoo.fr and yahoo.com don't have the same capabilities). (I haven't been on Yahoo for ages, though, after hearing and seeing so many bad things about them).

If changing your address is a problem, check if they offer forwarding to another address...

[headprogrammingczar]

If changing your address is a problem, check if they offer forwarding to another address...

Only if you pay.

[badman35]

I have used yahoo pop3 access for the last year and all i had to do is change a few settings in my account to do so. It is very simple to do and it does work.

[badman35]

I have used yahoo pop3 access for the last year and all i had to do is change a few settings in my account to do so. It is very simple to do and it does work.

i wanted to add that I do not pay out 1red cent for it. those changes to the yahoo acct. that i mentioned are very simple todo and very easy and also again it does work... I refuse to pay for pop3 yahoo when the rest of the world gets it for free..

[Jorpho]

Well? Are you going to share with the rest of the class?

And does this POP3 access work with other POP3-capable web clients, including GMail?

[badman35]

Well? Are you going to share with the rest of the class?

And does this POP3 access work with other POP3-capable web clients, including GMail?

Yes it does. I use it in Thunderbird 3 and it work's great.

[badman35]

In case most do not know how to change there global preferred content. that is the first setting that must be changed ( or step 1) you must change it to somewhere other then north America. (step 2) Then logout of yahoo & wait for 1-2 minutes and log back in "this has something to do with the way yahoo has there servers setup". Oh before i forget you may have to rollback to classic on your mail. Now go to mail options and you should see "POP & Forwarding" click on it then agree with yahoo's TOS then it should give you the info that you need to setup pop3 on what ever mail client you use.

[Kaelri]

I can confirm that badman's solution works. It's really one of the strangest "features" I've ever seen, especially from a high-profile service like Yahoo.

Looking at your Yahoo! Mail inbox, you'll see your email address in the top-left. You'll also see that this is a drop-down menu. Click it, and go to Account Info. There, scroll down to "Set language, site, and time zone." The first option on this page will be "Regional Site and Language." Change it to just about any non-U.S. option: "Yahoo! Asia" and "Yahoo! United Kingdom" have both worked for me.

This setting, as it turns out, changes nothing substantive. Your language, time zone, and email address will all stay exactly the same. However, POP and email forwarding - which ostensibly require paying for Mail Plus - will both be available now, for free.

It's weird, but it works. I used it to set my mother up with Gmail. She's been using Yahoo for years, and didn't want to give up her address, so I imported all her mail/contacts into Gmail and then used this trick to set up forwarding, so she's now able to seamlessly manage all her Yahoo stuff from Gmail's interface.

[Jorpho]

Hmm, UK didn't work for me, but Asia seems to do the trick. (Of course I started with Canada.) With UK, the POP setting appears in Mail Options, but selecting it just brings up a message about paying for Plus.

Oddly enough, it appears that if in GMail I try to check the "label incoming messages with xxx@yahoo.com" in the POP3 settings, it suddenly starts returning the "you need to pay" message and locks me out until I uncheck it!

This is also wreaking havoc with Thunderbird, which I use to retrieve messages from my GMail account, but I think the filter I've set up is taking care of it. (Looks like setting a custom filter on the "X-Gmail-Fetch-Info" header is the way to go.)

So thanks for the advice, I think - now we just have to hope that Yahoo doesn't go nuts and start banning users who make use of this exploit. Hopefully they will give all users free POP access for all first.

[stands2reason]

But I'm thinking of ponying up the $20 for POP3 access, for two reasons.

GMail offers that, and so much more, for free. Plus even with the free version you only have a few, unobtrusive text-based ads.

[think_of_a_shape]

I would look at what GMX offer. Also, MozBackup is useful if you are using Thunderbird...

[Jorpho]

Please pay attention, folks. This was never about finding an alternative to Yahoo, and while MozBackup is a very useful thing, it does not particularly apply here.

Anyway, one of the minor consequences of switching to Yahoo Asia is that ePrompter, my favorite, lightweight, system-tray New Mail notification tool, no longer works. Not that that's surprising, since ePrompter is getting increasingly out of date and non-functional. Specifically, while before I had it configured to use its own special mysterious method of checking my Yahoo inbox (a mysterious method that now mysteriously does not work), I now have it configured to access the Yahoo POP server - and it tries to retrieve all 10,000 mail headers I have stored in my Yahoo account, and it gives up before it makes it all the way through.

So, I need a new free, lightweight system-tray New Mail notification tool - but fortunately all it needs to do is check POP3 servers now. Any suggestions? (No Firefox extensions please.)

[Kaelri]

I found loads of generic POP3 mail checkers. As for Yahoo-specific options: if you use Yahoo Messenger (or a multi-protocol IM client like Trillian), you can get mail notifications through those. I was also able to find this on the first page of a Google search for "yahoo mail notifier." It's old, though - says it was added in 2006.

[Jorpho]

I found loads of generic POP3 mail checkers.

Yes, no doubt. But surely some are better than others? (One of ePrompter's major failings was the lack of SSL support.)

[Kaelri]

I'm not familiar with any in particular. In the past, I've used Thunderbird, which provides tray notifications built-in, and Trillian's IMAP/POP plugin, as mentioned. They both work quite well, but of course that's dependent on whether you have any use for their primary features.

[Jorpho]

Indeed, I had something considerably more lightweight in mind.

One more thing: there's no way to POP my Sent folder on Yahoo, is there? I'm thinking I might have to attempt some kind of IMAP backup for that one after all.