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: COXServer Name: smtp.mail.yahoo.comPort: 465Connection Security: SSL/TLSAuthentication method: OAuth2User Name: your user name, duhclick OKNow 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: 993Connection Security: SSL/TLSAuthentication Method: OAuth2Now 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.

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.

nchw68 Thanks for the help. I now have OAuth2. I'm still not quite there yet. I also am using TB version 115.10.0. I went back and looked at your prior post where you said that you deleted the COX account and added it again. I don't quite understand from where you deleted and added the COX account. In that process did you lose any emails when you deleted the account? My failure to understand may be due to age. I'm well past the average age of male life expectancy here in the US. So again, I greatly appreciate your help,

for mac mail app on imac, I had to only edit the incoming and outgoing mail servers information for the "cox account" in the "accounts" section of the imac system preferences. If I tried to add a new account either Yahoo! or Mail or any, it didn't work. Also, with this method I got to keep my message organization and it's pretty seamless. IE. no Adding accounts, etc.1 So I had to login to yahoo webmail with cox email address, accept terms and make a new password for accessing webmail at mail.yahoo.com. Then goto settings while signed in to yahoo webmail and "generate app password" and name it cox mail or something and click generate. then copy the generated password for mac mail cox.2 Then I had to open Mail app on imac. From the "Mail" dropdown menu at the top" i chose "settings". 3 I made sure the cox.net email account was selected on the left side of settings. Typed the generated password on the Account information screen (and changed the username to include Cox.net) Then chose "server settings" on right side tab menu. Then updated the incoming and outgoing servers from the imap.cox.net or whatever it was to imap.mail.yahoo.com and unchecked automatic for ports and double checked the ssl and port # settings (shown in picture)Incoming Mail (IMAP) ServerServer - imap.mail.yahoo.comPort - 993Requires SSL - YesOutgoing Mail (SMTP) ServerServer - smtp.mail.yahoo.comPort - 465 or 587Requires SSL - YesRequires authentication - YesYour login infoEmail address - Your full email address (name@cox.net)username - name@cox.netPassword - USE Generated App Password from yahoo webmail settings here!Requires authentication - YesThe password for both incoming and outgoing will not be the webmail password setup at mail.yahoo.com when you first accepted the terms of service. That password is for logging into yahoo WEBMAIL. You have to create a special password while you are logged into yahoo webmail, and choose "settings" then look for "generate app password" name it cox email password or something and copy the generated password from yahoo webmail settings. Then paste or type the generated password into the password field under "account information" tab shown in the picture below of imac mac mail "mail dropdown menu">"settings" for imap and for smtp The username must include Cox.net. Automatically manage unchecked.

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.

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.

Successful Email transition to Yahoo: using Thunderbird on Windows

gidgey
New Contributor II
7 months ago
"Description: COX
Server Name: smtp.mail.yahoo.com
Port: 465
Connection Security: SSL/TLS
Authentication method: OAuth2
User Name: your user name, duh - Mine keeps changing the user name to the last name I put into any of my 6 accounts. The only way it will send mail is if the correct user name is in the correct account (obviously). Why is it changing constantly?
click OK"
- DPS
  New Contributor II
  6 months ago
  This is how I work this issue:
  The Cox login remains the same as the one used to login to the Cox service, not necessarily the one that was used to login to your Cox webmail or other Cox email addresses, that doesn't change.
  The Yahoo email address remains what it was with Cox (username@cox.net), with a new password. I had 4 emails that transferred over to Yahoo and my son had another (he is mad because you can't forward emails without paying $5/month for Yahoo premium, so anything that comes up that uses the Yahoo/Cox email he is updating the email service to another email and will soon be off the Yahoo/Cox service).
  I use the POP3 and have all the emails stay on the server. I did the Third Party app password from Yahoo once (not even sure it worked). Since then all my email addresses under Thunderbird use just the one password for each account (4) and Thunderbird does all my junk mail filtering.
  I have not logged into Yahoo web email in about a month and have not had to update any passwords or keep entering the passwords since I got everything transferred over.
  I have found that the email is slow, numerous times with 2FA logins that send the code to email have timed out because the email hasn't arrived in time to use it (upwards of 5 minutes), in the process of moving those over to my phone, and will have to deal with the junk texts that come since they will have my phone number.
  I hate to admit it, but since the initial PAIN of the transfer and the ongoing 2FA issues, it has been uneventful.
  I still harbor animosity towards Cox with this whole transfer, because once you transferred your email their attitude was like, "HA! you're Yahoo's issue now!" And Yahoo, either playing dumb as to get third party apps going (of course everything except their app is going to be less secure) was of no help, was probably hoping people would just give up and not use other apps. Still, my thanks goes to Waleee (the originator of this thread) to get me operational.
  - wjeffrey
    New Contributor
    6 months ago
    Gidgey –
    [Windows 11, T-bird V102, multiple Cox accounts] As I mentioned earlier, I experienced what I think is the same SMTP problem you are describing. I finally got past it, though I used POP, not IMAP, and the "Normal password" approach and not OAuth2. What I found is that when you set up the SMTP server, you immediately run into the "Default" designation. And when you enter an email account name into the "Default Server" box, the SMTP server now works only for that specific email account and no other. In earlier (Cox) days, you could point multiple email accounts at the same Default Server, and it would work. This seems no longer true.
    To get past this, I closed T-bird, opened Yahoo email, logged into ONE of my email accounts, then went to Security>App Password, and generated an App Password (16 characters). That App Password is associated with the specific email account that I just logged into, so I wrote it down, along with the name of the account that generated it. Now I logged out of that email account, logged in to the next account, and did the same thing. Again, wrote down the App Password and the account name that generated it. Did this for each of my Cox email accounts – I had 6 of them. When I had done all of them, I logged out of Yahoo email entirely, and closed it.
    Now open T-bird. Set up each of your accounts as you would expect to, EXCEPT that you may not point more than one account to the Default SMTP Server (and you are not required to use the Default Server for any of them). So do not hit EDIT SMTP Server. If you do, it will ask you to enter an account name., and it changes the default account from the previous one to the one you just entered. You need to set up a non-default SMTP server. Click Manage Identities. In the resulting box, you can ADD an SMTP server that is not a Default – do not click the "Make Default" button. And going forward, when T-bird asks you to enter a password for either POP or SMTP, enter the account's App Password from the list you made earlier, and click Save Password. Click DONE (or whatever), and then repeat this for each of your other accounts. This should get you up and running.
    As a check, open T-bird, and find and click the Passwords>Show Passwords setting. You should see a POP Server line for each account, and an SMTP Server line for each account, and both of those lines should show the App Password for that account.
    It took me a long time to figure this out, but it worked. I don't know how it would be different if you choose IMAP instead of POP, or choose not to use an App Password, or use OAuth2 instead of "Normal Password". If it doesn't get you where you need to be, come back to me and I will try to help.
jusdoit
New Contributor
7 months ago
Thank you for the excellent instructions. I have 4 Cox emails and have started with setting up 2 in TB. I am receiving the same email copies to both email addresses which is very annoying. Any suggestions. Before the transition each email only received emails for each specific account.
Seems like Cox could have offered to sell us our domain so we dont have to deal with Yahoo. I hate seeing all the ads and yahoo emails selling stuff. Do you know if I have to pay $5 for each email to be ad free? Yahoo has a email selling something in the top of all emails. Its nice these do not show up in TB which is one way to be ad free.
Do you have any experience with another email programs that have the excellent format like TB for multiple emails?
Thank you
- DPS
  New Contributor II
  7 months ago
  jusdoit,
  The instructions started with Waleee, we just added to them as we figured stuff out.
  Don't know if each email is charged $5 to be "Ad Free", I would assume so since they are all treated as separate logins.
  I have used MS Outlook in the past for multiple email accounts and it worked fine.
  /R
  DPS
ChrisSparks
New Contributor
7 months ago
Can't get past "mail.yahoo.com/login"
trentheidtke
New Contributor
7 months ago
You would have thought that Cox would not have left virtually everyone in the lurch who uses Thunderbird or Outlook. That someone outside of Cox had to figure it out and post a solution say volumes about the complete and utter lack of customer service on the part of Cox. This has been nothing short of a disaster in terms of the migration and is inexcusable. That said, THANK YOU for posting the solution. The OAuth2 setting was a new to me item and it seems to have worked.
yrogerg
New Contributor
7 months ago
It's a traaaaaap!
I got the connection to T'bird working, thanks Waleee! However that is when the games began. Not all of my old emails migrated over. All of 2023 was missing, and much of 2024. I assumed that my bad habits of keeping old mail around had swamped the little server that the yahoos seem to be using, so I started sorting and deleting old mails. Part way through the process I realized that they were regenerating! Move them to the trash, empty the trash, and they just download again. ok, so I started bulk archiving to local folders rubbish files and all. Same thing, the emails would just reload, sometimes, but not always. Also if I tried to move more than 100 files at a time the whole mess would freeze up and fall over. Sometimes if I moved a month at a time, the files would copy out, then reload into the inbox, then slowly delete frome the inbox one at a time, at a 1 to 2 second interval. Cripes what a circus. I had to go the the yahoos online browser and delete a bunch of mail there to keep it from reloading.
So, I decided to archive one of my other accounts before I switched over to the yahoos. Cox has cut the cord, and no access to the vacuum tube server yet, so I should be able to clean things up, delete the account, and create a new account. What could go wrong? Same thing happened! I dip out 6 months of mail, and it flows right back in. What...where...fkt...I am giving up and going to bed. Tomorrow I will patent this mess as a perpetual motion machine.
JesusLover
New Contributor
7 months ago
Thank you SO much!!!!!
ChrisSparks
New Contributor
7 months ago
Finally realized that I needed the yahoo email to start this process. It only sent me 1 even though I have two cox emails! So I tried OATH2 and it doesn't work. I get popups complaining. Also I don't even think the smtp server is pingable.
\--------------
had wrong server name it is working now with OATH2
wjeffrey
New Contributor
6 months ago
          This is a great thread. Thanks to all. My question is similar.
          Windows 11 - As a Cox.net email user, I had a Cox master email account and five subaccounts. They have all transitioned to Yahoo. I also have a Gmail account. I can send and receive between each of my Yahoo accounts and the Gmail account, so it seems the setups on Yahoo are good.
            My next step is to set up the six Yahoo accounts on Thunderbird 115.11.0. The problem I am having is that Thunderbird wants me to supply the password for the Yahoo pop and smtp servers. I know what the passwords were for the Cox servers, but I don't know them for the Yahoo servers. The Yahoo account password does not work, nor does the first part of my email address. Since the accounts work properly on Yahoo, the server passwords must exist somewhere in the Yahoo account information, but I can't find them. Any thoughts on where they can be found would be welcome.
            I would prefer to keep the accounts as POP (port 995) rather than IMAP (port 993) unless there is some reason to change. Is the use of the mysterious OAuth parameter the secret?
Bill
- ChrisJ2
  Moderator
  6 months ago
  Hi, Bill. With Thunderbird, you may want to have Yahoo generate an "app password" Here are instructions for you: Substitute "Thunderbird" for "Outlook" in the instructions. https://forums.cox.com/discussions/apps/how-to-use-cox-e-mail-transitioned-to-yahoo-via-outlook-/152689
  - wjeffrey
    New Contributor
    6 months ago
    Looks simple enough, though annoying and non-intuitive. Thanks for following up. Is the idea that this would be done INSTEAD OF the OAuth thingy, or IN ADDITION TO it? What security settings need to be specified in Thunderbird? "Normal password", etc.
stinkfoot63
Contributor II
5 months ago
Nothing is working. Errors errors errors and that damned Yahoo popup.
stinkfoot63
Contributor II
5 months ago
I'm glad you had success. Unfortunately nothing I do seems to work in being able to use Thunderbird. Yahoo has successfully bullied me from avoiding their damned interface because their server refuses to accept the credentials being sent from me- despite having followed your instructions to a tee.
Setting up a new account is just another error-prone exercise in futility. I do not have time to play these games and little patience in trying to guess which settings I should slash and burn in a futile attempt to use what I had set up.
There's something critical in the information that's missing. I'm getting authentication failures along with that goddamned popup prompting me to sign up a new account which I actually tried using with existing credentials only to get "already exists" error. Of course Cox isn't going to help. Neither is Yahoo.
To the Cocks execs who decided this was a good thing to do to paying customers: Kindly give yourselves massage parlor happy endings rectally with rusty garden tools.
- OldBob2
  New Contributor II
  5 months ago
  Stickfoot63 I am sorry you are still having issues...it took me like 12 hours on and off to get it done and it seems one small thing could be different for each particular issue. I went thru my notes that I tried to take and as I said on Yahoo webmail I did set up an App password and TB did not like it but a couple things I did when I kept getting error messages..
  I kept getting error messages that User Name failed..correction was to use full email address incl Cox.net.
  I guess has to match what Yahoo has? Full User Name must be full email address..can’t remember what it has to match.
  Once the names were full email addresses and OAuth2 and use new Yahoo password (not app one) it worked. Had to get out and back in a couple times and I think it asked for permission at some point.
  after I changed the IMAP/SMTP to the Yahoo settings I too got an error message saying I changed and TB had to restart..did each time.
  I also cleared cache and history and cleared out all my saved passwords in TB.
  I also allowed cookies in Settings/PrivacyWeb and security (read in one of my travels you had to allow cookies) The set up of this section of TB has again changed with ver 15.11.1 so it does not look as it did before..might have nothing to do with it but worth a shot.
  It is so easy to get frustrated at something we have no choice or control about and agree Cox/Yahoo/TB could have done a better job for all the different senarios we are all experiencing. Step back and try again another day. Good luck!
  - stinkfoot63
    Contributor II
    5 months ago
    I give up at least for the time being... nothing's working. I do not have an abundance of time to be jerked in error circles by following instructions to a tee- and I have even less patience.
    Thank you for responding.