Forum Discussion

Tcox's avatar
Tcox
New Contributor II
7 months ago

Successful COX to Yahoo email transition with Thunderbird

Before you start the transition, it is useful to have a separate email from another provider for testing purposes since once you start the process there is no going back and nothing will be working for a awhile. When I got the ready to go email from cox I assumed it would be days before the service would stop. My cox accounts stopped working the next day, so get on with it already.  

On my PC I had Thunderbird as my POP email client and wanted to keep this. I like having my emails stored locally where they can easily be backed up. I initiated the email account transition on the yahoo mail page by entering the existing cox email address, password and generating a new yahoo password. The birthday you enter can be anything but it can't be changed later. Write everything down.

This created a new yahoo email account with the old cox address. I was able to use the Yahoo webmail interface to access the new account, and immediately received emails from yahoo. I tested sending and receiving with my 3rd party email, and after some delay these initial emails went through also. I was able to edit my default first name, last name and preferred name on the yahoo account personal info page. So much for webmail.  

To get Thunderbird working I was able change my existing POP and SMTP server settings without deleting or creating a new account:
pop.cox.net -> pop.mail.yahoo.com , (SSL/TLS and port 995 unchanged) 
smtp.cox.net -> smtp.mail.yahoo.com, (SSL/TLS and port 465 unchanged)
In these same tbird dialogs, my old cox username had not included the '@cox.net', so I added that (two places).  
My existing password authentication setting didn't work when using the new yahoo password, so I changed both pop and smtp authentication to OAuth2.
Once I did the yahoo password dialog popped up and I completed the login and connected with the yahoo servers. 
Still some things to tailor but basic email with tbird is working.

  • gidgey's avatar
    gidgey
    New Contributor II
    7 months ago

    THANK YOU! Choosing "OAuth2" from the drop down list was the key!

    Here are some things I WISH I knew doing this whole messy thing, hopefully it will help others:

    (I also have a question at the end, please help!)

    • If you aren't getting e-mail in Thunderbird anymore, that means Cox has now moved that acct to Yahoo. They do NOT transfer all of your e-mail accounts at once! Some took days more. Every time I tried setting up certain accounts, yahoo said "We don't recognize that name" (or account, whatever it said). I kept thinking I was doing something wrong, but it's just that they haven't transferred that account yet. I'm not 100% sure about this, but it seems like the whole transfer process started when I initiated the move, then it kicked all of the accounts into gear.
    • I am worried that my Contacts haven't transferred yet, not on any of my 6 accounts. I was told by Yahoo on the phone that it could take 1-2 weeks (no comment).
    • Also, if you successfully connect Yahoo to forward mail to Thunderbird, you will get a pop up and prompt to give permission for yahoo to forward the mail to Thunderbird. THIS will be your sign you did it correctly!
    • I hope someone has an answer for this: Yahoo deletes your emails after some time, unless you go through the annoying task of moving them to some folder and even then I'm not convinced by my research yet that yahoo EVER keeps your e-mails until YOU delete them (?) Now that I got Thunderbird to work, will Thunderbird keep the mails forever like it always has??-- Anybody know?
    • Tcox's avatar
      Tcox
      New Contributor II
      7 months ago

      I have always used local storage and local backups for emails, contacts, etc. Of course I could have a drive go bad and I would only have myself to blame if I didn't have a backup. 

      Once you set up Tbird to use POP (as opposed to IMAP), all emails pulled from the POP server are removed from that server and only exist locally on your PC. There may be some delay before they are actually deleted from the server. There is an option in Tbird account settings to "leave mail on server". This is handy when you have two devices for fetching mail but don't want the secondary device to delete any. 

      Tbird will keep your emails indefinitely except maybe the trash or spam folder.  Once you start storing your emails in Tbird, you will want to use Tools->Export at least once a year to create a backup.

      • gidgey's avatar
        gidgey
        New Contributor II
        7 months ago

        A few newbie questions, please..

        • So if I use IMAP, yahoo will delete my mails in the 7 days or whatever they said, correct?
        • If I use POP, I won't be able to use my cell phone to retrieve mails from yahoo?
        • What is the input for the POP setting, please. (IMAP is imap.mail.yahoo.com, what is the POP setting?). *I see it, it's POP.MAIL.YAHOO.COM*

         

  • MichaelJ's avatar
    MichaelJ
    Moderator
    7 months ago

    Tcox, 

     

    I am happy to hear that your transition to Yahoo Email was successful and thank you for providing your first-hand experience details for our Forum members, 

     

    Mike

    Cox Support Forum Moderator 

  • gidgey's avatar
    gidgey
    New Contributor II
    7 months ago

    Ok it won't let me edit anymore, sorry about that.

    Thunderbird has these settings:

    "To recover disk space, old messages can be permanently deleted, both local copies and originals on the remote server.
    Don't delete any messages
    Delete all but the most recent
    Delete messages more than [] days old"

    So, if I check "Don't delete any messages", Thunderbird will keep them forever until I delete them, correct? I assume Yahoo will then delete them according to their protocol and I won't be able to see older mails on their interface, just Thunderbird. Am I understanding correctly? THANK YOU for your help, BTW :) 

  • gidgey's avatar
    gidgey
    New Contributor II
    7 months ago

    My LAST issue is with the Thunderbird EDIT SMPT SERVER User Name constantly changing what I put in there. If the User Name isn't the same as the account I am using, it won't send the e-mail. I can change it back, but it will always change back to the last one I typed in for another account.

    How do I fix this??

    • bigbopper's avatar
      bigbopper
      New Contributor
      7 months ago

      Me too.. after several hours, I found that when looking at account settings, scroll all the way down until you see "outgoing server (SMTP) at the bottom.  There you can add, delete, or change them to your heart's content.
      I added my own and used the "description"  area to give them clearer names and when I finished selecting them and modifying them, lo and behold, they "stuck" and didn't get changed anymore.

  • Tcox's avatar
    Tcox
    New Contributor II
    7 months ago

    After working for a few days, my new yahoo email broke down this morning.

     I can still send and receive to/from a different provider, but I can't send OR receive to/from any cox transitioned yahoo account. I made no changes on my end. I have an old email acct created originally on yahoo and it has no issues.

    Hopefully this will be detected and fixed quickly since I see no way to report problems to yahoo without paying them for the privilege. Unlike google, yahoo does not seem to have a page showing known outages. 

    Update: The next morning some of the lost functionality is returning. 

  • BillNeo's avatar
    BillNeo
    New Contributor
    5 months ago

    Thank you so much for posting this.  The OAuth2 was the key to getting this to work in Thunderbird (even with IMAP.)