Switch from Yahoo! Mail to Gmail

Tired of Yahoo! Mail and want to try Gmail? Here's an easy guide to a hassle-free switch! Switch over by importing your contacts directly into Gmail or by importing a CSV file. It sounds technical, but it's really easy.

Steps

Method One: Automated Transfer

  1. Open your Gmail account.
  2. Go to Settings. The settings button is the black gear icon on the top right of your Gmail account.
  3. Click on the "Accounts and Import" Tab. It should be in the middle of the Settings page.
  4. Click "Import mail and contacts" and enter the passwords for your Yahoo! mail account. Do not include the suffix (i.e. "@yahoo.com") in your user name.
    • The POP server name may vary depending on your country, but just change the last suffix in: pop.mail.yahoo.com (i.e. ".de" for Germany)
    • The standard Port address is 995.
  5. Select the import options you want to use. You can decide to import all your contacts, and old mail, or some portion of thereof.
  6. Note that only messages currently in your inbox will be imported. They will be automatically labeled with the name of your yahoo account. If you have other folders in your yahoo account that you want imported, you'll need to rotate those messages into your yahoo inbox.
  7. Be aware that you may not be able to import from Hotmail or Yahoo mail. As long as these email service providers do not provide POP3 access to their servers, you might not be able to import.

Method Two: Manual Contact Transfer

  1. Log into your Yahoo! mail account and click on "Contacts".
  2. In the Contacts tab, select the "Actions" drop-down menu and click "Export All...".
  3. Select Yahoo CSV from the drop down menu.
  4. Save the file to your desktop.
  5. Log into your Gmail.
  6. Click on "Contacts" in the left hand sidebars.
  7. Select "Import Contacts" from the options.
  8. In "Choose File" select the file on your Desktop. It will import all your contacts.
  9. You will have to edit all the data (Name, Email, Address, Phone etc.) manually afterwards, because all data from the CSV file will be located in the "Name" field in Gmail.



Tips

  • You can use a cloud based solution to backup your Yahoo account and then use the one click migrate function to migrate your email to Gmail. This way you will have a regular backup of your Yahoo Mail and be able to migrate it to any service you want including GMail.
  • No longer valid. (You can forward Yahoo email without having a Yahoo Plus account for FREE. Just change your location setting to Yahoo! Asia. Then your mail settings will allow you to forward or use POP to synch or forward to GMAIL. [This solution does not works as of July 2012] )
  • IMAP access now appears to be free; settings have been given below.
  • If you want to abandon your Yahoo account, go to "Mail Options" in Yahoo. Select "Vacation Response." Write a short note to announce to correspondents to send all emails to your new Gmail address, which you specify. This email will be sent to whoever emails you on your Yahoo. So you may want to obfuscate your email ID: ie. ghost_post(AT)oman.om instead of ghost_post@oman.om If you want, you can also send a quick email from Gmail to your Contact Book addresses informing them of your change.
  • If you're willing to pay the $20 per year for Premium Yahoo mail and want to auto-forward your email from Yahoo to Gmail, go to "Mail Options" in Yahoo. Select "POP and forwarding." Choose "forwarding" from the list and enter your Gmail address. Press "send." (Yahoo! has recently discontinued some of its programs which charged for features. Reports vary, but some Yahoo! email users have reported this service now available for free. Try it on your account to see.)
  • If you don't want to use Gmail's auto slurp feature for your old mail, you can use the method available at http://sourceforge.net/projects/mrpostman/ and http://sourceforge.net/projects/freepops/
  • Special notes for sbcglobal.net users of yahoo email: You'll first try to use gmail's import dialog using your xyz@sbcglobal.net email address, but this will fail because the pop server for your email is not sbcglobal.net. Gmail's email import dialog then allows extra choices. Try these instead:
    • POP username: xyz@sbcglobal.net (note that username is NOT simply xyz)
    • POP server: pop.att.yahoo.com
    • Port: 995 Use SSL checked
    • ie: Gmail import will attempt to log in to pop.att.yahoo.com:995 using username xyz@sbcglobal.net
    • Note: The following settings may not work using POP, but will work using IMAP. Thunderbird will automatically setup the account, but here are the settings, in the event you want to manually setup your mail software:
  • IMAP SETTINGS:
    • Server Type: IMAP mail server
    • Server Name: imap.mail.yahoo.com
    • Server Port: 993
    • Connection Security: SSL/TLS
    • Authentication Method: Normal Password
  • SMTP SETTINGS
    • Server Name: smtp.mail.yahoo.com
    • Server Port: 465
    • Connection Security and Authentication Method are same as IMAP

Warnings

  • Remember to check your Yahoo account occasionally in case you have received an important message which the sender has not forwarded to your Gmail. Also, Yahoo will deactivate any account that has not been logged into for four months, as it will be deemed a "dormant account" (http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/mail/access/access-04.html)
  • As of recent, Gmail supports both importing and exporting your contacts to CSV (comma separated values) file. Take note that Gmail's CSV file is compatible with MS Outlook (NOT Outlook Express), so if you want to transfer your contacts from/to your local e-mail client, make sure it supports MS Outlook CSV format. You can easily import/export address books between MS Outlook and MS Outlook Express though, but it's beyond the scope of this article.
  • Be cautious when using the "Vacation Response" as mentioned above. This will alert everyone who emails you what your new email is, no matter if you want them to know it or not. Some spammers do monitor emails that come back to them with software which can automatically add your new email address to their database.

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