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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
  • Bruce1's avatar
    Bruce1
    New Contributor
    6 months ago

    I really like Thunderbird but the switch over to Yahoo.com from Cox.net has been a mess. I can receive emails OK but cannot send any. I tried all the various settings, including an app-specific password, but nothing seems to work.  I accessed the Thunderbird site-nothing of any real help. I have been through all the Yahoo instructions again and again--zip.

    The most common error message I get is: "An error occurred while sending mail. The mail server responded: Request failed; Mailbox unavailable. Please verify that your email address is correct in your account settings and try again." 

    If anyone has a suggestion, I would be grateful.

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

      Unlike before with Thunderbird where you could just create one Outgoing SMTP server setting and use it with all of your email accounts, I had to create a new SMTP server setting for each of the email addresses that were ported over to Yahoo.  When you go into Account Settings, scroll all the way to the bottom and select "Outgoing Server (SMTP)" then click Add and make a new SMTP server setting for each email address now with Yahoo.

       

      The settings need to be:


      Description:  any unique name you want

      Server name:  smtp.mail.yahoo.com

      Port:  465

      Connection Security:  SSL/TLS

      Authentication method:  OAuth2          Note:  I seem to recall this option didn't show up until I saved the setting then went back into it.

      User Name(you must put the full email address here now):  whateveryouraccountnameis@cox.net    

      Then go into the Account Settings of each individual account and at the bottom select the associated SMTP server you create for that account.

       

      Repeat for each email account ported to Yahoo.

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

        Nevets--Interreting--I guess I did it different..as I changed the IMAP/smpt server for each of my emails, I guess it did so behind the scenes but I got them in.  Yahoo is very very slow and with several email accounts, on myiPhone, I get timed out a lot.  So Many Many little settings that I keep stumbling on that need to be changed in Yahoo..so so frustrating..but glad you are having success in this transition. 

  • attcbf's avatar
    attcbf
    New Contributor
    5 months ago

    I have a different problem. After my cox emails (20K+) were all migrated to yahoo, each time I click on TB's "get messages" tab, it wants to download all 20K+ emails, rather than the 20 or so new emails that came in after the migration. I use a PoP account. I do not want to re-download all of these older emails that were previously downloaded when they were on the cox server.

    I just spent more than 2 hours with Yahoo technical support without any solution. There must be a way I can avoid re-downloading all of these emails. Please help. 

  • starlite's avatar
    starlite
    New Contributor
    3 months ago

    Ever grateful for your clear instructions. Well done! I too stumbled over the OAuth2 issue but with the posting of others, success. Thanks to all