Yahoo IMAP access from email clients?
 

From Wikipedia page on Yahoo Mail:

Other than official support for Zimbra Desktop and mobile phones, others have also adapted this Yahoo IMAP requirement, such as the YippieMove migration service and the MailStore Home backup app.

Anyways, what are the chances of getting Yahoo IMAP supported directly in Thunderbird source, rather than using a custom build of Thunderbird? Previous discussions from 2008-2009 are available here, here, and here.

Alternatively would it be possible to develop add-ons for popular desktop clients (like a Thunderbird extension or Outlook MAPI plugin) to support this, without having to run a local proxy server (like YPOPs/FreePOPs or the WebMail extension for Thunderbird) or pay for a hosted translation service (like IzyMail)?

Not having IMAP functionality with a standard client is one of the reasons I'm going to discontinue my paid Yahoo account.

Trying Shredder.

Just a note: it appears the pop server will accept upper and lower case user names, but imap requires lower case logins only.

I will say that I don't find Yahoo IMAP particularly robust.

I have one Yahoo mail account with a lot of mail in it -- folders with 21000, 31000, 1100 mails, etc. -- and that account regularly goes flaky, giving errors, trying to login, locking out, and so on.

It's fine for regular mail checks, but that one account shows me not everything is robust with the Yahoo IMAP implementation.

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Note: the downloadable version of Thunderbird offered above that has been modified to do the Yahoo IMAP trick is a beta version of 3.0, which is why it's called Shredder. I know that there have been fixes in the current 3.0 to make IMAP more reliable; this might be part of the problem.

I'm not running Linux, so I don't have a c compiler immediately available, so I can't get current source and recompile, so I'm stuck until someone else compiles a trick version.

Nicely, Shredder doesn't overwrite current Thunderbird 3, so I have both of them available, and my desktop shortcuts are modified to access different profiles; my standard accounts in released 3 and my Yahoo accounts in the older Shredder.

It's nice to check all accounts in one client, including one account that doesn't have POP3 access even with the region thing, even if that client isn't the best.

One key problem with Yahoo IMAP access, it seems to me, is that the backend doesn't appear multi-threaded.

If I am in a Yahoo account with the IMAP client, and then I POP check the same account, I always get a message on the POP check that the mailbox is in use. I also get login errors from the gimmicked Thunderbird beta, and while I haven't tried logging the session to track down the errors, it looks like they are also "mailbox in use" type errors.

To me, this looks like a big reason that Yahoo hasn't rolled out IMAP except where absolutely required, like on the Apple products.

Gmail and AOL do not give these errors on multiple access to a mailbox, and I suspect these errors are against protocol for IMAP.

It seems to be a serious limit on Yahoo IMAP access.

Started 6 June 2010

http://sourceforge.net/projects/imapidproxy/
http://imapidproxy.sourceforge.net/

Gimmicked Thunderbird 3.1
 

http://www.aliasbailbonds.com/KeeFor...thunderbird-31

They have the patches for using Yahoo IMAP on Thunderbird 3.1, plus a compiled Windows Binary.

A big upgrade from shredder...

(make sure you unpack it over Thunderbird 3.1, and not over Shredder. I copied my 3.1 over Shredder, and this over the 3.1 in the old Shredder location.)

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Thunderbird 3.1 is much better at IMAP error handling than Shredder.

And that quality reveals just how much the Yahoo IMAP server isn't really ready for prime time.

On folders with thousands of messages it chokes, gives not ready, inaccessible and other errors. Probably related to only one access of a mailbox at a time.

It makes me understand why Yahoo delivers IMAP where they have to, on mobiles and such, but don't offer the kind of open IMAP access that AOL and Gmail support.

It would seem to be a headache for all concerned.

Yahoo IMAP will only work over Edge or 3G on Android. Will not work if it recognizes a WiFi connection. probably the same thing on a normal computer

Works for me on "a normal computer" when I use a mail client modified to do the non-protocol standard handshake.

In fact, that's what this thread is about.

The team at KeeForms has released Thunderbird 3.12 with the Yahoo IMAP gimmick.

Get the patch, or the Windows executable to install over a working Tbird 3.1 installation.

http://www.aliasbailbonds.com/KeeFor...thunderbird-31

Keeforms offers Thunderbird 3.14 with the Yahoo IMAP gimmick.

http://www.aliasbailbonds.com/KeeFor...ry/thunderbird

They are keeping up rather well.

My Windows Live Mail standard client on Windows 7 Home successfully connected to Yahoo! mail via IMAP protocol.

I have quickly tried with my Apple Mail and my @ymail.com account works as well!
It seems they quietly corrected imap support?

Same here, set up in Sylpheed, I have a .co.uk yahoo email addy, but using the .com servers. Only problem is I seem to have 2 inboxes :confused:

And works for me, with an @att.net address in standard Thunderbird.

Let's see if it lasts.