Using Yahoo email in Mac OS mail app

I can’t fault your reasoning, but one suggestion is inspired by something some computer programmers do. (Some love it, many hate it when their employers foist it upon them) It’s called Peer Coding/Peer Programming. In the case of coders, one person sits at the keyboard and does the typing, writing the code, and a second person sits with them and they actively talk through what they are doing, bouncing ideas back and forth. That also puts two sets of eyes on the screen to look for errors. 

If you have an indulgent friend you can convince to be your co-pilot they might be able to help you spot any discrepancies in how your system is set up or what might be. They don’t have to be better at tech than you; they just need to be able to follow instructions and have enough computer familiarity to watch for anything that doesn’t look like what they expect from those instructions. Even if they don’t understand it all, by you answering their questions you may spot exactly what isn’t as if should be. (I’ve even found that people with a little less understanding sometimes are better at seeing mismatches because they are only looking at patterns, symbols, and general concepts rather than meaningful details that they have preconceived notions about. Not always, but often; as long as they aren’t feeling like they are going to be quizzed on the information.) 

The peer doesn’t need to learn or teach. They are a sounding board. but I totally understand the e-Mail address having been the reason to stay. It’s a nightmare to change addresses. At least with the webmail access you could transition gradually.

Actually, that’s a question… How long will Cox give customers before telling Yahoo to close e-mail accounts that are associated with closed Cox accounts? I mean now the process of severing from your cable company involves canceling with two companies. (Unless they give Yahoo control to create and close cox.net addresses?) It really bothered me when Cox disallowed extra e-mail addresses. We had a family address as our primary used only for the cox account purposes and then each had our own personal e-mail addresses. When Cox changed that policy and required me to make my personal address the user account that meant I had to give my password to the second head of household so that they could also manage the account. Otherwise their e-mail only gave them limited access to the account management, no authority to billing, customer service, etc. it was totally inappropriate that I should have to share my personal e-mail password with another person. Each e-mail had to have a real person, no second addresses for a person allowed. I wonder if that policy still stands. Presumably Yahoo has the capability to handle more addresses (I assume Cox was just minimizing the number of e-mail accounts they had to manage, and the associated server storage space.)

At least Apple lets + users create anonymized e-mail addresses so that their 3rd party account logins do not connect directly to their personal address, reducing the risk of identity thieves connecting all of your accounts. (If all of your various website accounts use your same personal e-mail address as the username then it is easier for scummers to use social media data mining to break into more of your accounts. They just keep trying to login with your address. But if you have an anonymized address then your actual personal address won’t be recognized by the website. Plus you’ll be able to tell an e-mail is phishing if it comes addressed directly to your personal address (instead of forwarded to it) since that isn’t the address associated with that website. 

Anyway, enough of my bird walking. I hope you find your best solution. 

Several folks have reported this:  Just fill in the information and enter the app generated password. When the dialog box comes up saying it cannot verify--it may offer you the option to enter the ports OR edit the SMTP list--choose the yahoo account you created and server settings from the sub header--you will see the full setup screen.  Alternatively go to the Mail menu and choose Preferences--then select thr Yahoo account, sever asettings as above and complete the set up.

Go back to yahoo to generate app password & the one they give you is the password to use. Then set up imap & smtp settings for yahoo email on Mac 

Help me clarify something.   When you say that you know what the password should be having logged into Yahoo's webmail--are you using the same password that you use for webmail, or are you following this step:

When it comes to the password, do not use the password you created for Yahoo webmail--that is fine to use on the phone but not here. Instead you must go up to the Yahoo web site--login with your new Yahoo password. Then select your account and you'll be prompted to login again (I know--you did that already to get into your webmail but that is how they do it), and then navigate to Security just below the header, select that. Scroll down and on the right hand side you'll see an option to Generate an App Password. Select that and you'll be given the option to create and copy a unique password--and that is the password you want to paste into the password field on your mac.

Others have had the same issue--no option to de-select automatic --but when the verification failed they got a different dialog box and that allowed them to enter the correct information along with the app generated passwords.  Another option is to navigate to email preferences (under the Mail menu in mail) Select the Yahoo account (the one you just created but did not work, and choose Server Settings from the subheader--you should then see the full setup screen as well as the two checkboxes for "automatically manage connection settings" -which should be deselected if they aren't already.

If the outgoing fails--when you try to save it--you should be given the option to edit the SMTP server, and that too would present the full setup screen, as above. 

Several things to unpack:

1. Try waiting till Yahoo has fully populated your email to see if your outgoing email works--it may be that the server is busied out.  
2. If that does not work--as was the case for me you may need to delete the app password you generated--and generate a new app password and paste it into both the imap (incoming) and smtp (outgoing) fields.  Be sure the TLS/SSL checkbox is selected and port 465 is selected for outgoing.
3. gmail uses its own smtp server--you cannot use a gmail server with Yahoo mail.
4. Finally, f all else fails try appending apple to the yahoo smtp server path ( apple.smtp.mail.yahoo.com
5. I too have had issues the past 2 days and spoke to Yahoo tech support today. They claim everything is fine but I was not able to send email--although receive is just fine. I am awaiting a call back from a senior tech-someone who actually knows anything about the Apple OS.  Yahoo has had intermittent issues with Mail for mac in the past and it may be that it is the case once again.  If I learn anything I will post it.

Many thanks for this. I had several cox.net email addresses. I've successfully migrated my primary Cox email, but can't discern how to retrieve the others. Using the link in the original email Cox set to me re: migration to Yahoo did not work, as I've now already set up a Yahoo account for the primary Cox email address. Setup for additional Yahoo accounts (one for each of the other Cox addresses was my thought) fails because it wants to assign a Yahoo mail address to me, it won't let me enter the other Cox email addresses. I'm stumped; any suggestions?

So, my usual MO is to google first but I have found that the results--whether a YouTube video or even a support page can be incomplete, misleading or in a few cases absolutely useless.  Google does not curate or vette results--and you can burn up a lot of time looking for an answer.  That's why forums like this are valuable--and why I posted a detailed step by step instruction on resolving this issue last week.   

Your advice is good and thanks for posting it. I've found that providing the answer and then the additional advice on how to solve future issues is what most folks want--an answer, now, and someone to reach out to if they have any additional problems. Having said this--I truly fault Cox. They had to know that this would be an issue-so the emails they send out should provide a link to an FAQ for users-regardless of which platform--who may require a non-standard approach. Mac users may only be 14% of the marketplace but they should not be left to fend for themselves.

But I guess at this point Cox just wants to offload this entire email business as fast as possible and get out of Dodge.