How to move from Yahoo Mail to mello

Before you start

• A mello address. mello is invite only for now: request an invite, and sign in once at mail.mello.mx.
• A computer with Thunderbird or Apple Mail. They copy mail from one account to another. Both are free, and you can remove the accounts once you’re done.
• Time. Copying mail takes from a few minutes to a few hours, depending on how much you have.

Forward your new mail, if you have Yahoo Mail Plus

Yahoo has moved automatic forwarding to Yahoo Mail Plus, and it isn’t offered in every country. If you have Plus, have Yahoo send everything that arrives on to mello:

1. In Yahoo Mail on a computer, open Settings, then More Settings.
2. Choose Mailboxes, then your Yahoo address under Mailbox list.
3. Under Auto-forwarding, enter your mello address and choose Verify.
4. Yahoo sends a message to your mello address. Open it in mello and follow its link.

Yahoo forwards only what arrives from now on, and only to one address.

Without Plus: keep an eye on Yahoo

On a free Yahoo account, the forwarding option isn’t there, and mello has no way to fetch mail from Yahoo on its own. You have three ways to catch what still arrives at your old address:

• Keep Yahoo in your mail app for a while. Thunderbird, Apple Mail or the mail app on your phone can show your Yahoo inbox next to mello, so you see new Yahoo mail as it arrives. Reply from mello, and the sender gets your new address.
• Copy again now and then. Every few weeks, drag what has arrived in Yahoo since the last time, the same way as below.
• Pay for a month or two of Plus if you get a lot of mail, turn on forwarding, and cancel once Yahoo has gone quiet.

Whichever you choose, give out your new address early: it’s what really stops the mail going to Yahoo.

Copy your old mail

Add both accounts to one mail app, then drag your folders from one to the other. The app copies each message with its date, its attachments, and whether you’ve read it.

1. Add your Yahoo account. Thunderbird finds Yahoo’s settings and opens Yahoo’s own sign-in page. In Apple Mail on a Mac, choose Yahoo! and sign in on Yahoo’s page.
2. Add your mello account: your name, your mello address and your password. Both apps find mello’s settings on their own. If one asks, they are below.
3. Wait for Yahoo’s folders to load. Then drag the messages of each folder to the same folder in mello: Inbox to Inbox, Sent to Sent, then Archive and the folders you made yourself.

The same settings are in the mello webmail, under Settings → Accesses.

To copy a big folder, sort it by date and drag one year at a time. If the app stops halfway, it’s easier to see what’s left.

If your mail app can’t sign in to Yahoo

Yahoo no longer lets mail apps in with your plain Yahoo password. Thunderbird and Apple Mail sign in through Yahoo’s page, so they don’t need anything else. An app that only asks for a password needs an app password instead:

1. Go to your Yahoo Account Security page and sign in, in a browser you usually use for Yahoo.
2. Under External connections, choose Create app password.
3. Name it after the app, choose Generate password, and copy it.
4. In the mail app, enter your Yahoo address and this password in place of your usual one.

An app password works only where you enter it, and you can remove it from the same page once you’re done moving.

Bring your contacts

1. In Yahoo Mail on a computer, open Contacts.
2. Open the More options menu (the three dots) and choose Export to CSV file. Yahoo exports only CSV, not vCard, and mello reads either.
3. In the mello webmail, open Contacts, choose Import, and pick the file.

mello reads Yahoo’s columns for names, email addresses, phone numbers and notes. A file can hold up to 5,000 contacts and be up to 5 MB. Contacts with an email address already in your mello contacts are skipped, so importing the same file twice does no harm.

If Yahoo refuses to export, a contact with unusual characters in its name is usually the cause: Yahoo says to edit them out and try again.

Bring your calendar

Yahoo Calendar can give you a link to an .ics file when you share a calendar:

1. In Yahoo Mail, open the calendar.
2. Open your calendar’s menu, choose Share, then turn on the option to generate links.
3. Open the link for importing into a calendar application (ICS). It downloads an .ics file.
4. Then turn the links off again in the same place, so nobody else can use them.

The mello webmail can’t open .ics files yet, so you import the file through a calendar app that has your mello account:

• On a Mac: open System Settings → Internet Accounts → Add Account → Add Other Account, choose CalDAV account, and enter your mello address, your password and the server mail.mello.mx. Then, in Apple Calendar, choose File → Import.
• In Thunderbird: add a new calendar On the Network, with your mello address and the location https://mail.mello.mx/. Then choose Tools → Import → Calendar.

Choose your mello calendar when asked. On a Mac, there’s another way: add your Yahoo account under System Settings → Internet Accounts with calendars turned on, select the Yahoo calendar in Apple Calendar, and choose File → Export → Export to get the .ics file.

Give out your new address

Without forwarding, this matters more than with other providers. Over the next weeks, move what matters to your mello address:

• The people you write to most. A short note does it, or simply reply from mello: your new address goes with every message.
• Accounts that sign you in by email: your bank, your phone company, the shops you use. Change the address in each one’s settings, starting with those that send password resets.
• Newsletters you want to keep. Subscribe again with your new address. For sign-ups you don’t want tied to your real address, use a private address.

Whatever still arrives at Yahoo is your list of senders still to update.

Your old account

Sign in to Yahoo now and then for a few months. Yahoo treats a mailbox nobody opens for 12 months as inactive: it stops receiving mail, and its contents are deleted. That’s fine once everything is in mello, but not while mail still arrives there.

When Yahoo has gone quiet, you can let it lapse, or close the account if you like.