Migrating from Ymail to Gmail

[kalos]

Hello

I have been unlucky to have a yahoo email address from many years before gmail and I couldn't do the switch.

Now, everyone ignores my messages due to my @yahoo.com account which is associated with spammers and fraudsters.

Is there a way to migrate from yahoo to gmail without losing any data? I need to maintain records of all my emails, more than a decade ago.

Thanks!

[Ath]

You can have both 'brands' of email next to each other in the same browser, no problem at all. Just inform all of your contacts of your changed address, after copying your contacts to gmail, several procedures can be found here.

[sphere]

Email clients are great for this.  You can use an email client like Thunderbird like a file explorer/hub of sorts for multiple email accounts.
It would look something like this:
1) Add an account in Thunderbird (or a similar email client ) for your Yahoo email. I would set it up using IMAP- however if you wanted to download all the email off of Yahoo you could use POP.
2) In the settings/preferences for that email account choose which folders you want to subscribe/synchronize locally and how often.
3) Add another account in Thunderbird (or a similar email client) for whatever your new email will be. (ie your Google account)  Again IMAP works best.
4) Once again choose the email folders you want to subscribe/ synchronize.
5) Allow Thunderbird to download all the messages. It will be helpful if you make sure Thunderbird is downloading the entire message and not just the header/subject.

After all of your old emails are downloaded, you can copy or move messages and folders from one email account to the other. You can also set up Thunderbird so that it automatically copies/moves any new messages to your new email account using its filters and rules.  Thunderbird has to be running to do this.

You can also import your contacts using Thunderbird and synchronize them with your new email. I did a quick search on how to bring this contacts into Thunderbird. Link But I'm sure there's also a way to import them directly into your nor new email account.

 You can have multiple email accounts and simply move the contents of folders from your Yahoo account to your new email account.

[sphere]

After all of your old emails are downloaded, you can copy or move messages and folders from one email account to the other. You can also set up Thunderbird so that it automatically copies/moves any new messages to your new email account using its filters and rules.  Thunderbird has to be running to do this.

-sphere (November 15, 2019, 12:40 PM)

I wanted to add. Do some testing when transferring folders/files first.  I have had some difficulty copying entire folders like Inbox and Sent.  If you have created other sub folders those can likely be copied.

[Tuxman]

Is there a way to migrate from yahoo to gmail

-kalos (November 15, 2019, 09:10 AM)

Because Google Mail will never be what Yahoo Mail is today!

Email clients are great for this.  You can use an email client like Thunderbird like a file explorer/hub of sorts for multiple email accounts.

-sphere (November 15, 2019, 12:40 PM)

Yup, except that Thunderbird is not recommendable.

[rgdot]

Maintaining records is one thing, actively needing them is another.
For maintaining records you could download Yahoo email and have them stored in a searchable database using something like Mailstore Home.

[sphere]

Yup, except that Thunderbird is not recommendable.

-Tuxman (November 15, 2019, 01:34 PM)

Curious why? Because Mozilla is no longer actively developing it? Other faults?  What would you recommend?  It seems like any email client should be able to do this.

[Tuxman]

Curious why?

-sphere (November 15, 2019, 08:05 PM)

After having moved on from Mozilla (which is SeaMonkey today) to Firefox, Thunderbird was the first e-mail client I used for more than a few weeks in a row. I essentially stopped using it shortly after I had started using GnuPG: Enigmail has never been stable enough. Also, Thunderbird is annoyingly slow to react, even on my current 2018 laptop. (I tried it a few weeks ago after a long time and I still don't like it.) Thunderbird suffers from most of the typical open-source problems, including a horrible user experience.

What would you recommend?  It seems like any email client should be able to do this.

-sphere (November 15, 2019, 08:05 PM)

Yes, it would, assuming a good IMAP support (which seems to be hard enough). Note that Google's shitty mail "service" sometimes tries to be smarter than the IMAP standard. Prepare for broken transfers if you really want to move there.

Still, one of the applications which should not be chosen by what comes first in Google is your e-mail client. (The others are your web browser and your word processor, at least in my opinion.) I think we can agree that web-based e-mail sucks from both a security perspective (you cannot safely encrypt e-mails in your web browser) and a user experience perspective. These are also the most important points in actual e-mail clients: Security and the user experience.

I have tried quite a few e-mail clients in my life, including Outlook Express, Pegasus Mail and Lotus Notes, the latter being not entirely bad, but probably too focused on collaborative networks, just like Outlook is. Seven years ago, I decided to look for a better e-mail client that won't crash anymore, and after a few tests, I bought a license for The Bat! which - accidentally - is what many DonationCoder users seem to prefer as well. It surely is a preferable application and the developers try their best to make it stay relevant. Note that every upgrade costs a (small) amount of money, so if you buy a license for 8.8.9 today which also covers 9.0 once it is released, it probably won't work for 10.0 anymore.

Alternatives which I also recommend:

• Pandora Mail
  As the next version of The Bat!, 9.0, will get a slow, impractical and generally shitty ribbon interface (just like Outlook has), I decided to jump ship, giving Pandora Mail a ride. Its MDI interface is very different from what you might know if you have never used Eudora in your life, but it is remarkably good. There is a discussion thread about it on DC (which is where I learned about its existence) and a fan site, highlighting its nicest features and outlining the need for an e-mail client in 2019.
  
  
• Claws Mail
  Think of it as a less shitty Thunderbird. Also, it is free to use.

[Shades]

GMail has a feature to automatically forward messages being received at GMail to a different mail account. I make use of that feature. You should check if Yahoo has a similar feature. If it does (and chances are high, because it is a basic feature that almost all mail server software have built in), that would solve your problem of people stubbornly sending mails to your Yahoo mail account.

It might even be a good idea to create a mail footer message that says you moved to GMail. Email client software has a configuration setting that allows you to fill in a "return to:" mail address. If you fill in your GMail account there, your GMail account becomes part of the mail-header that is part of every message you send. Mail clients and most web mail clients respect that configuration setting in the mail-header and people who respond to messages now "automagically" send replies to your GMail account instead, because that mail address is already filled in for them.

That should cover your need of receiving messages at GMail. You must be patient though, as it can take a while before messages are forwarded by any mail service. In my case, I wait about 5 minutes before I check my main mail account for messages that are received/forwarded at GMail.

For archiving and transfer of already received messages in your "collection", the MailStore Home suggestion by another poster in this thread is excellent for this. And its free too. I use it myself for archiving my mail messages for more than 10 years now. And if I'm honest, searching for content in archived messages and their attachments is far better in MailStore Home than the built-in search of mail clients. More useful search options/parameters and faster too.

[4wd]

Is there a way to migrate from yahoo to gmail without losing any data? I need to maintain records of all my emails, more than a decade ago.

-kalos (November 15, 2019, 09:10 AM)

1. Install email client with IMAP support
2. Add your GMail account to it using IMAP
3. Add your Yahoo account to it using IMAP
4. Drag all the messages in the Yahoo account to the GMail account
5. Go make coffee

Which is basically what sphere said above since it's the easiest way to do it.

[Deozaan]

Is there a way to migrate from yahoo to gmail without losing any data? I need to maintain records of all my emails, more than a decade ago.

-kalos (November 15, 2019, 09:10 AM)

1. Install email client with IMAP support
2. Add your GMail account to it using IMAP
3. Add your Yahoo account to it using IMAP
4. Drag all the messages in the Yahoo account to the GMail account
5. Go make coffee

Which is basically what sphere said above since it's the easiest way to do it.

-4wd (November 16, 2019, 02:34 AM)

I didn't know this was so easy!

Would this work from IMAP to POP? i.e., so I can archive my Gmail (IMAP) to a private account (POP) which I control and have a local copy of?

[wraith808]

GMail has a feature to automatically forward messages being received at GMail to a different mail account. I make use of that feature. You should check if Yahoo has a similar feature. If it does (and chances are high, because it is a basic feature that almost all mail server software have built in), that would solve your problem of people stubbornly sending mails to your Yahoo mail account.

-Shades (November 15, 2019, 11:57 PM)

This is what I did to migrate from one GMail account to another, and it worked like aces.

[4wd]

Is there a way to migrate from yahoo to gmail without losing any data? I need to maintain records of all my emails, more than a decade ago.

-kalos (November 15, 2019, 09:10 AM)

1. Install email client with IMAP support
2. Add your GMail account to it using IMAP
3. Add your Yahoo account to it using IMAP
4. Drag all the messages in the Yahoo account to the GMail account
5. Go make coffee

Which is basically what sphere said above since it's the easiest way to do it.

-4wd (November 16, 2019, 02:34 AM)

I didn't know this was so easy!

Would this work from IMAP to POP? i.e., so I can archive my Gmail (IMAP) to a private account (POP) which I control and have a local copy of?

-Deozaan (November 16, 2019, 04:35 AM)

Sorry, I've only done IMAP to IMAP but there's nothing to stop you creating both IMAP and POP settings for the same account in the email client.
I suffix IMAP accounts with [IMAP] so I can tell them apart from POP, (using Thunderbird).

BTW, another email client based on Thunderbird: Interlink