iCloud and yahoo mail

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Level 1

24 points

iCloud and yahoo mail

My father has a PC and has a yahoo email from the mid-1990's. He also has an iphone and has his contacts on his iphone synced with his iCloud account. However, he has a ton of contacts that are in his yahoo email account (you sign in yahoo and click contacts and there are 275 contacts there). He has been adding contacts directly on his iphone and then has to re-enter them onto yahoo. I need to help him.

I've volunteered to type in all the yahoo contacts into his iCloud, so that they are all on his phone and synced. Should only take a few hours. Here's my question: How do I get his contacts from his new and improved iCloud contacts list (after I hand-merge them all) and his yahoo account to talk to each other? Is there a way?

Or is the easiest way to teach him how to use Microsoft Outlook and sync Outlook with iCloud? My brother (who has a PC at home and an iPhone in his pocket) does this.

Or do I sync his yahoo email with the mail app on icloud.com? When I sign into iCloud using my father's info and click on the mail app, it says "iCloud email needed. To use iCloud mail, create a new email address by turning on Mail in your iCloud settings using iOS or OSX". Do I really have to create a new email address for him? Or could I use the yahoo address. He already gets his yahoo email on his iphone.

Please help.

Mark

iMac, OS X Mountain Lion

Posted on May 26, 2014 1:23 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

randers4

Level 9

63,525 points

May 26, 2014 1:50 PM in response to marknovom

iCloud will not sync data that is stored on non-iCloud accounts such as Yahoo. If you want to sync the contacts with iCloud, add them to his iCloud account and don't try to sync them with Yahoo. If he's already syncing contacts on his device with Yahoo, go to Settings>Mail,Contacts,Calendars...tap the Yahoo account and turn off Contacts syncing so he won't see duplicate contacts on his device.

Similarly, iCloud email and Yahoo email are entirely different email accounts and will not sync with each other. If he likes using Yahoo email, just have him continue to use that on his device. The only way he would have to create an iCloud email account is if he wants to sync notes with iCloud (which requires and iCloud email account to function). If he does, he'll have to create the iCloud email account but he doesn't have to use it for email. He can just ignore it.

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Answer 2

marknovom Author

Level 1

24 points

May 26, 2014 2:19 PM in response to randers4

Thanks. So, if I put everything into iCloud so that if he makes changes on his phone it makes changes in the cloud (something that isn't happening now because he is using yahoo contacts), the only way for him to continue using yahoo email and have the contacts from icloud on his desktop computer (meaning: I type in the address bar "John Doe" and his email pops up) is for him to use a desktop client for his email like Microsoft Outlook, correct?

Mark

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Answer 3

randers4

Level 9

63,525 points

May 26, 2014 2:30 PM in response to marknovom

If he has a PC rather than a Mac, in order for him to sync any iCloud data with his PC (including contacts) is to use Outlook 2007 or higher, then set up iCloud syncing on his PC as explained here: https://www.apple.com/icloud/setup/pc.html.

The other option is to not try to do this with iCloud, and instead add his contacts to his address book on his PC and sync them with his device using iTunes (by selecting to do so on the Info tab of his iTunes sync settings and syncing). If he does this, changes would only be updated when he syncs.

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