There are two ways to set up Yahoo email on your computer – the first is the free option and the second requires payment of about $20 per year. I shall go over both these options in detail which might help you decide which path to take.
By the way, this may sound obvious but you need to have a Yahoo email account to set it up on your computer. If you don’t have one, please refer the step by step instructions on how to make your Yahoo email address quickly.
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FYI, the web based email accounts from Yahoo! come in two flavours – the free account (owned by the majority) and the Yahoo! Plus which costs a tad less than $20 per year. In this article, you’ll learn a little more about your Yahoo email account and which program to employ to download and store email on your computer – no more connecting to the internet (online web server) just to check some old message. But before we delve deeper, here is a little background.
Emails are stored on an online computer called web server
When someone sends you an email, it arrives at your account on a web server. I suppose you already know that. Now, to download email from the online web server to your computer we need email software – an email client, in techie jargon. The next step is to set up and configure your Yahoo email account in this program. Once this is done, the program will automatically connect to the web server and download the messages to your computer. You can also change various settings of this program like instructing it to download email after a specified period of time, delete messages from the web server or retain a copy, play a sound when you get new messages etc. FYI, email clients use protocols to transfer messages from the online web server to your computer. Some popular email protocols or technologies are POP3 and IMAP. Thus, to download email from your online account to your computer using an email program the account needs to be enabled with a protocol that the program understands – typically, POP3 or IMAP.
Why do I need program to download Yahoo email?
Yahoo! email accounts are web based which means all you need is a web browser and an internet connection to check your email. You load the Yahoo! Mail homepage – http://mail.yahoo.com – in a browser and sign in with your username and password. The Graphical User Interface (GUI) provided by Yahoo! lets you compose, forward, send, organize and customize your email account. But the main drawback is that email messages reside on the Yahoo! web server and will be unavailable to you without an internet connection. An email program or an email client lets you download Yahoo email and store the messages on your computer. The email is now accessible even without an internet connection. Through such programs you not only maintain a copy at a local system but can also take backups of the messages. So even if important correspondences are accidentally deleted from the web server or your account is hacked, you can still get hold of your email messages from your computer.
How to set up your Yahoo email account for free
Let us now explore the 100% free option of setting up a Yahoo account on your computer and this applies to all the people (the majority) who own a free Yahoo! email address. For those who have the Yahoo! Plus upgrade, please jump to the section below.
As I touched upon very briefly above, to transfer email from the Yahoo web server to your computer using a client program, we need to have POP or IMAP enabled on the email account. Unfortunately, both these options are missing in the free web based Yahoo! email accounts. The solution to this problem is to download and install the Yahoo email program called Zimbra desktop. Once the program is running on your computer, you need to set up your Yahoo email address by adding it as an account. Zimbra desktop program lets you add multiple email accounts even those from Gmail, Hotmail, your ISP email address, web site email accounts etc. Thus, not only can you get Yahoo! email stored on your computer but also those from other email accounts.
Set up Yahoo email in any email program
You are, however, not restricted to using only Zimbra desktop Yahoo email program to download email. You can employ any email client as long as you can get Yahoo email account POP3 enabled. The Yahoo! Plus upgrade comes for a little less than $20 annually and gives your POP access. The next step is to choose an email program depending on your operating system.
- Windows XP: Outlook Express, Outlook, Windows Live Mail, Thunderbird, IncrediMail, Yahoo! email program Zimbra desktop etc.
- Windows Vista: Windows Mail, Windows Live Mail, Outlook, Thunderbird, Yahoo! Zimbra desktop, IncrediMail etc.
- Macintosh systems: Apple mail, Zimbra desktop email program from Yahoo!, Thunderbird etc.
- Linux computers: Thunderbird, Yahoo! Zimbra desktop etc.
To conclude, you can set up a Yahoo email account for free if you use the Zimbra desktop email program or pay about $20 per year to get the Plus upgrade (and, thus, POP3 access) and download email using any email client.
