How to set up IMAP Yahoo Mail with Apple Mail

Here a walk through

Setup Yahoo Mail on Mac w or w/o (2 step verification)

I have been trying that since the 12th, and it always gives me an invalid user/password error message. Any other ideas?

I'm having difficulties with this same thing. (https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3512946?answerId=16811221022#16811221022)

Summary: I had a non-paid Yahoo mail account working fine in Lion until I changed my password. Now I can access the account via web or Touch, but cannot get Mac Mail to access the account; I just see password errors.

I've tried all the steps I've found on the Apple Discussions, YouTube videos, and my own experimentation. Everything results in the same error and cycle of password request.

Any helpful tips appreciated,

Markie

Just to close the loop on this: I was able to get it to work.

I created a brand new Yahoo account, and was able to do the setup in Mac Mail with no problem.

Since the only change had been my password, I investigated a bit and found that the length of the password was causing the problems.

I shortened the password to under 20 characters, and everthing started working again.

So, apparently, Mac Mail truncates strings in the interaction with Yahoo. The web interface worked fine, and the iPod Touch did too, just the Mac had the problems.

Thanks for the great tip. I was having the same issues and your settings guide worked great. There is nothing that I could find on Yahoo that listed their settings for Apple Mail.

Glad it solved it!

It was driving me crazy when it happened to me. 😉

Markie:

I would like to update you on how I was able to solve this problem. It is not a flattering depiction of Yahoo support.

There is a problem with apple mail settings being recognized by Yahoo servers after outages. It puts the settings into a state of suspended animation.

The last outage occured 1 week ago for three hours which left over one million users stranded with no service and the syncing that my Apple Mail client was occuring regularly with Yahoo Classic was thrown off by this outage.

Once I discovered that 10.6 and later LION required Yahoo Plus, I decided to upgrade knowing full well that this would be my last year using Yahoo not due to technical problems, but a general ineptness in understanding anything Mac and not knowing that outages occured last week. They answer using Windows conventions.

I went to the Apple Store nearby and spoke to the Genius Bar person who the Store had seen several people (well over 100) in the last week who had the password problem.

Once I spoke to Yahoo <again>they lead me down the microsoft POP3 or POP methods for restoring settings and I mentioned IMAP and they did not know what this was. Over 10 people at Yahoo had never heard of IMAP. Apple Mail takes IMAP.MAIL.YAHOO.COM.

Having tried several solutions. I became resigned to the problem.

I was frustrated with the limited session capability. Keychains, password, settings, ports, etc....

Try this only after you saved all your current settings.

1. I then decided to delete all my accounts in Apple Mail. Mail>Preferences>Account>Hit "-" sign
2. I then deleted all of the keychains associated with yahoo.com. Use Keychain.app.
3. The next time you log into Apple Mail you will be prompted using the initial setup screen. This helps with the suspension.....I call it funk.
4. I then went to gmail.com and added a new email client to see if it was just my computer that had DSL hiccups or the wireless router was not syncing right.
5. Low and behold, I noticed GMAIL SMTP settings included a colon followed by my email address.
6. So I configured the GMAIL client and added this first. This took out the suspended animation out of the password error message. My Apple Mail client worked right away and I was able to send and receive emails for free. No fee, no hassle.
7. Then just for grins, I tried reconfiguring Yahoo again.I used Mail>Preferences>Account>Hit plus> and used the correct IMAP and SMTP settings and the client immediately started working without the suspended animation.

Somehow, the syncing gets screwed up after outages. I switched from Classic Yahoo mail to Yahoo Plus as well which may have helped my settings. Yahoo has a forced march going on to pay for services that everyone else has for free.

I am guessing the following:

Outages throw off Apple Mail settings due to recalibration problems at Yahoo.( My Mail worked well with Classic until the outage occured.)

Classic Mail takes the old POP settings that probably worked fine until the suspension occurs.

Yahoo Plus takes the IMAP settings for 10.6-> Lion.

You need to shake up the configuration by adding a colon followed by your Email address in your SMTP server (smtp.mail.yahoo.com:_______@yahoo.com (or______ @sbcglobal.net or ______@Att.com

The certificates will update accordingly.

I suggest that you print out your account settings first befor you try this at home boys and girst.....:)

I hope this helps someone who has tried everything. You can not get a solution by trial and error on this one.

John

John,

Sounds like an interesting experiment, but I've continued to use my free Yahoo account successfully.

Yahoo still has outages. They still have sub-par support.

But I can use the email with IMAP settings on a free account with no additional problems as long as I keep the password short.

Thank you for the investigation and update!

Markie

All i did in yahoo was change my location to UK. Once i did that, I was able to turn on POP and set up outlook and mail app

I experienced a similar problem today after having set-up my Yahoo! IMAP account for the first time.

These instructions were very useful to start with:

http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20110208153256491

These are the settings that now allow me to both receive and sent e-mails (Mail > Preferences > Accounts):

Account Information

Incoming Mail Server: imap.mail.yahoo.com

Username: full yahoo e-mail address

Password: ***

Outgoing Mail Server: Yahoo! imap

If you click on the dropdown menu choose edit and in the new window click the advanced tab:

Use custom port 465

Use SSL

Authentication: Password

Username: full yahoo e-mail address

Password: ***

TLS Certificate: None

Mailbox Behaviour

Check all boxes

(and later tell the newly created folders on the left what they are meant to do by selected the respective folder (e.g. Sent) > Mailbox > Use This Mailbox For (e.g. Sent)

Advanced

Port: 993

Use SSL

Authentication: Password

I want to change my yahoo email from POP3 to IMAP.

In your instructions when you referred To MAIL- PREFERENCE-ACCOUNTS.

Did you do this on your iPhone or desktop. Because I don't see PREFERENCE on my iPhone under settings.

I also noticed someone mentioned setting ups new Yahoo acct which I would prefer NOT to do.

Would your instructions be done on an existing acct?

Please help!

Thanks in advance.

Kathyfromlongview

Hi there, I cannot find the option to choose imap. When I set up new account it ticks everything automatically! This is making me crazy. I need it set up on mac, iPad and iPhone.

Hau,

I'm pretty sure the mail settings are for IMAP by default, so you won't see it as a checkbock. At this point it's a different setting to get things todo POP. Just be sure you use the correct IMAP servers for the email services you're setting up.

Markie

Thank you, but it definitely states Pop. I am using btinternet for my mail. The Pop settings do not allow all the Imap info and servers to be put in. Hau

Hi everyone, I recently also set up my IMAP yahoo account on my iPhone and IPad.

The trick here is not to choose the existing Yahoo option but to set up the account manually on all devices!

Settings for MBP

- see earlier entry (Oct 17).

Settings for iPhone & iPad

- Go to Settings

- Choose Mail, Contacts, Calendars

- Choose Add Account...

- Do not choose Yahoo! but Other

- Choose Add Mail Account

- Type in Name, Email, Password and Description

Incoming Mail Server:

- Host Name: impa.mail.yahoo.com

- User Name: your full yahoo e-mail address

- Password: your password

Outgoing Mail Server:

- Host Name: smtp.mail.yahoo.com

- User Name: your full yahoo e-mail address

- Password: your password

- Use SSL: on

- Authentication: Password

- Server Port 465

Note: When setting your yahoo IMAP account up both the user name and password under the Ougoing Mail Server are listed as 'optional' - you will have to fill in your information here, otherwise you'll be able to receive emails but the emails you sent to others will never reach them.

Hope this helps. Worked for me and took me almost no time to set up.