How to download all your Yahoo Mail emails to a computer

Yahoo Mail has no button that hands you your mailbox as a file. What Yahoo does offer is quieter and works well once you know the server name, the password it wants and the three settings that silently lose mail.

How do you download all your Yahoo Mail emails?

To download all Yahoo Mail emails, create an app password in your Yahoo account, add the account to a desktop mail app using Yahoo's export server, export.imap.mail.yahoo.com on port 993, and let it sync. Then export the mailbox from that app as one file. Yahoo warns that large accounts can take several days.

That is Yahoo's own method, from its help page Download your email from Yahoo Mail with IMAP. The page names Thunderbird, Outlook and Mac Mail as suitable apps. Everything below was checked against Yahoo's pages in October 2026.

The three ways Yahoo gives you, and what each is for

Route	What you get	Wait Yahoo states	Best for
IMAP download into a mail app	Every message and folder, on your computer	"Several days or longer" for large accounts	A full, usable copy of your mail
"Get my data" page	Yahoo says "a copy of your emails, contacts, and more"	Not stated	Worth trying first if it is offered to you
Privacy dashboard download	Information about your account, in JSON	Up to 30 days	Seeing what Yahoo holds on you

The last two come from Yahoo's page on viewing and managing your account data. Under "Download your mailbox" it points to mail.yahoo.com/getmydata. The privacy dashboard request is a different thing: Yahoo says it can take up to 30 days, the file stays available for 30 days, it arrives as JSON that "might be hard to read at a glance", and you cannot make a second request for a product until the first one is finished or cancelled.

JSON account data is not a mailbox you can open or import. For mail you can read, search and move, use the IMAP route.

Before you start: three settings that lose mail

Yahoo lists three things to review, and each one is a real way to end up with half a backup.

Previews instead of full messages. Some apps download only a snippet until you open a message. Yahoo's advice is to make sure the app is set to download the full contents for offline use. Look for a setting about keeping messages, or all mail, available offline.

"Keep mail on the server." If the app asks, say yes. Yahoo's wording is blunt: otherwise your email will be deleted from your account when it is downloaded.

Folders over 100,000 messages. Yahoo says folders holding upwards of 100 thousand emails may have issues downloading everything, and the fix is to move some of the mail to a new folder first. If your inbox has been untouched since 2009, split it by year in Yahoo Mail before you sync.

Step 1: Create an app password

Mail apps that do not use Yahoo's own sign-in page need a separate, generated password. Yahoo's app password page gives the steps:

Sign in to your Yahoo Account Security page.
Under "External connections", click Create app password.
Enter a name for the app, such as "Mail export".
Click Generate password.
Copy the password. You will paste it into the mail app once.
Click Done.

This is where many people get stuck, because Yahoo does not always offer the option. Its page says to use a browser that you have used to sign in to Yahoo for several days in a row, and to avoid Incognito mode. It also says customer care cannot override that check. So do this from your usual browser on your usual computer, not a fresh one.

Step 2: Add the account with the export server

In your mail app, add a new account and choose manual or advanced setup so you can type the server yourself. Use the settings from Yahoo's export page:

Incoming (IMAP) server: export.imap.mail.yahoo.com
Port: 993, SSL required
Outgoing (SMTP) server: smtp.mail.yahoo.com
Port: 465 or 587, SSL required, authentication required
Email address: your full address
Password: the app password from step 1

The server name matters. Yahoo's everyday IMAP server is imap.mail.yahoo.com, and Yahoo's standard IMAP page carries a note for people who are "not seeing all your old messages", sending them to the export server instead. If your app set itself up automatically, it almost certainly used the everyday server. Edit the account and change it.

Step 3: Let it sync, and check the count

Leave the computer on and plugged in. Yahoo says accounts with a lot of content can take several days or longer, and that the app developer, not Yahoo, is the one to ask about progress.

To know when it is done, compare numbers. In Yahoo Mail in your browser, note how many messages your biggest folders hold. In the mail app, select the same folder and look at the message count in the status bar or folder info. When the two match and stay matched for a day, the download is finished. Then open a few old messages with attachments while your Wi-Fi is off. If they open, they are truly on your disk.

Step 4: Save the mailbox as one file

A synced account is a cache that belongs to the app. A file is something you can copy to a drive, keep for ten years or import somewhere else. Make the file.

On a Mac, in Apple Mail. Select one or more mailboxes, choose Mailbox, then Export Mailbox, and pick a folder. Apple's Mail guide says Mail exports mailboxes as .mbox packages and never overwrites an earlier export. MBOX is the most widely read mailbox format there is.

On Windows, in classic Outlook. Choose File, then Open & Export, then Import/Export, then Export to a file, then Outlook Data File (.pst). Select the Yahoo account, keep Include subfolders checked, and choose where to save. Microsoft's .pst export page uses exactly this case, an old Yahoo account, as its worked example. One Outlook trap applies: by default it downloads only the past year of mail, so open the account's sync settings and move the slider to All before you export.

Whichever you use, store the file on an external drive as well as your computer. One copy is not a backup.

Can you download Yahoo emails on a phone?

Not in any way that gives you a complete copy. Phone mail apps keep recent messages and fetch the rest on demand, and they have no export. The job needs a computer with enough free disk space for the whole mailbox. A phone is fine for creating the app password in a browser you normally use.

Can you just forward everything instead?

Forwarding only covers new mail, and on Yahoo it is a paid feature. Yahoo's forwarding page opens with "Upgrade to Yahoo Mail Plus to use the email forwarding feature", and adds that it is not available in all locales. For the mail you already have, the download above is the free route.

What to do with the file

If the download is a safety copy, you are done. If you are leaving Yahoo, the file is how your history comes with you. Most services that take imports read MBOX or .pst. Secria imports MBOX, EML and .pst files on every plan, including the free one, and MBOX and EML files are read and encrypted in your browser before upload.

When you are finished, tidy up. Yahoo notes that app passwords remain active even if you change your main password, and the only way to cancel one is to delete it. Go back to the Account Security page, open the app passwords under "External connections", and delete the one you made. If spam is what pushed you to this point, our guide to stopping spam emails covers what works on any provider.

Frequently asked questions

Does downloading delete the emails from Yahoo? Not with IMAP, as long as you answer yes when an app asks whether to keep mail on the server. Yahoo warns that choosing no deletes the mail from your account as it downloads.

How long does it take to download all Yahoo emails? Yahoo says accounts with a lot of content can take several days or longer. Smaller mailboxes finish much sooner. Leave the app open and the computer awake.

Why are my oldest Yahoo emails missing after the download? Usually because the app used the everyday server, imap.mail.yahoo.com. Change the incoming server to export.imap.mail.yahoo.com. If one folder holds more than about 100,000 messages, split it into smaller folders first, as Yahoo advises.

Is the Yahoo privacy dashboard download the same as my emails? No. Yahoo describes it as information about your account, formatted in JSON, taking up to 30 days. For your mailbox, Yahoo points to its "Get my data" page or the IMAP download.

Do I need to pay for Yahoo Mail Plus to export my mail? No. The IMAP download works on a free account. Plus is only required for automatic forwarding.

A mailbox on your own disk is worth having whether or not you ever leave Yahoo. If you do move, Secria's free plan takes the file you just made.