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Waleee's avatar
Waleee
New Contributor II
8 months ago

Successful Email transition to Yahoo: using Thunderbird on Windows

After spending a good deal of time and effort trying to make Thunderbird get along with Yahoo, I finally figured it out. If you are reading this, you have probably already called Cox only to find out that they have washed their hands of the whole email thing and will only refer you to a phone number for Yahoo. And of course Yahoo is not set up to handle this, so you will wait in the phone queue for half of forever only to find out that they don't know how to set it up either. So in the hope that my experience may help some other poor slob, I present the below instructions, and I hope it helps. I am using the Thunderbird program to access emails on a Windows computer, however I suspect the settings will be the same for anyone using Thunderbird.

First, to transfer the emails to Yahoo and establish a webmail account, follow the directions provided by Cox as regurgitated here:

"Visit mail.yahoo.com/login and enter your complete cox.net email address, including the Cox.net suffix, as your username. Then enter your current Cox password, and accept the Yahoo Mail Terms of Service. Upon signing in, you’ll set up a new password for your new Yahoo account."

Now log out of the Yahoo webmail and open Thunderbird. I have my email accounts and corresponding folders located in a column on the left of the page. Yours may be set up differently, but mine is the default and I will base detailed instructions on that. Go to the left column and click on the line that shows your complete cox email address. If you have multiple addresses, you will need to perform the following instructions for each of them. Now look to the top right of the new page and click on "account settings". At the bottom of the settings page is the line "Outgoing Server (SMTP)", and at the far right of that line is a box that says "Edit SMTP server"; click on it. A pop-up window will open, adjust the settings as shown below:

Description: COX
Server Name: smtp.mail.yahoo.com
Port: 465
Connection Security: SSL/TLS
Authentication method: OAuth2
User Name: your user name, duh
click OK

Now go back to the left hand column and click on "Server Settings". On this page the settings will be as follows:

Server Name: imap.mail.yahoo.com 
Port: 993
Connection Security: SSL/TLS
Authentication Method: OAuth2

Now close Thunderbird and reopen it. You will now be asked for a password for each of your email addresses. Use the new password that you used to set up the Yahoo webmail. Congratulations you have mail! If you want to use POP instead of IMAP I suggest you first set it up with IMAP and then go back and change the setting after you know it is working.

 

 

COX YAHOO email Thunderbird
  • nchw68's avatar
    nchw68
    New Contributor
    8 months ago

    This would not work for me using TB version 115.10.0. TB never prompted for a new password after restarting and I could not receive emails to the cox address. However, simply deleting the cox account and adding it again with the above settings DID work.

     

    EDIT: After re-adding the cox account I did get a sign in prompt from yahoo's webmail where I entered the new cox email password. 

  • OldBob2's avatar
    OldBob2
    New Contributor II
    8 months ago

    Thank you for the detailed and easy instructions on this conversion to Yahoo and Thunderbird!!  Your process seems easy and when it is my time I hope it goes as well...I have only received one email from Cox as yet.  I was wondering if you could TEST this process with one of the several email accounts I have with Cox when I am notified by Cox to do so but NOT the original main email account?  Another reply to this solution said they did the MAIN account and ALL the accounts went over to Yahoo. 

    Another question is--can you use the SAME password for Yahoo when you are asked to create a new password?  Just would be so much easier.

    Thank you for any help you can give to make this transition to easier that the horror stories I have read about. 

    • DPS's avatar
      DPS
      New Contributor II
      8 months ago

      I think that would depend on how "strong" your original password is.  I tried the same password and Yahoo said it wasn't strong enough, so I had to come up with another.  Two special characters, numbers and capital letters and 16 characters total for Yahoo to decide if it was strong enough.

    • Waleee's avatar
      Waleee
      New Contributor II
      8 months ago

      Hi OldBob2. I had exactly the same thought as you and picked the address I was most able to live without if things went to the bad. Unfortunately, when you move one email address to Yahoo the rest will also automatically move. At that point the only access to your emails will be via the Yahoo webmail until you can get your email client, in this case Thunderbird, communicating with Yahoo. If you open TB right after setting up your Yahoo account, you will find that no emails exist there anymore. When you set up your account in Yahoo you will be required to use a password that is different from the Cox password.

      • OldBob2's avatar
        OldBob2
        New Contributor II
        8 months ago

        Thx Waleee..I was afraid if you move ANY they all go..bummer.  So I guess as long as I enter a different password in Yahoo I should be OK..and change the in/out settings in TB with the new Yahoo password I hopefully should be ok..Last time I tried to use the Authentication method: OAuth2, Thunderbird did not like it for my IMAP but hopefully that has been resolved.  Hope I dont have to change too soon and many of these pitfalls will be worked out.

  • DPS's avatar
    DPS
    New Contributor II
    8 months ago

    Thanks for the write up.  I have been trying to get this to work for the last 5 hours.  Could only find FAQ's, WIKI's and Forums that were old and using outdated settings and settings that are no longer available in the software or they are using Outlook, a few months old, or people saying "Same as me" or "Me too", which really doesn't help the issue.  I then searched for the newest and found this entry.  Made the changes (OAuth2), even brought that up to Yahoo support, and I was able to send emails. 

    When I reopened Thunderbird a rather big pop-up box from Yahoo opened and wanted verification that I wanted to use a 3rd Party email client and asked for my U/N and P/W.

    One thing that is not brought up, that the Yahoo support had me try was the 3rd Party Email client or application password creation on Yahoo's security page.  It creates a password for your application other that Yahoo's app, and support had me enter that password at one time also.  I don't know if that has/had any effect on this issue.

    I made the mistake of "testing" the transfer with my primary account email, and when you do that it automatically transfers any email addresses set up under that account.

    THANK YOU for your write up.  It most definitely helped this poor slob.

    • stinkfoot63's avatar
      stinkfoot63
      Contributor II
      6 months ago

      Tried this- didn't work.  A useless window "inviting" me to establish a new account but I can no longer use Thunderbird.  There doesn't seem to be a way for me to access my accounts any way besides Yahoo's interface.

      • OldBob2's avatar
        OldBob2
        New Contributor II
        6 months ago

        Getting Cox to Thunderbird was indeed the hardest part.  I had set up an App password but never had to use it..I changed SMTP aand IMAP settings in the TB  Server settings to the Yahoo ones I am sure you have but the authoriztion OAuth2 does not show up in the drop down until you restart TB a couple of times.  Yahoo is very slow so you have to let the servers have time to talk to one another.  I have 4 email accounts that after a total of like 12 hours finally have all in TB and working (except of the Unified folder deleting does not delete off inbox until you empty trash).

        I hope maybe this helps but check out my other questions and you might stumble upon something that helps..  getting into iPhone was a piece of cake compared to this.

         

    • Waleee's avatar
      Waleee
      New Contributor II
      8 months ago

      Hi DPS. I too went to Yahoo's security page and created an app password, but when I entered it in Thunderbird, I got the invalid password popup. So while that may have set the stage for me entering the Yahoo password that I had initially created, I rather doubt that it did anything useful. If anyone finds that using this "app password" was necessary,  I hope they will add a comment here to help other folks. And I wouldn't mind understanding it as well.