How to Forward Yahoo Mail to Gmail Without Having Yahoo Plus

By Josh | July 18, 2007

As you know, I’m a big fan of Thunderbird, but I’ve been trying to use Gmail lately. I like the idea of being able to receive all of my email in one place so I don’t have to go to separate websites to get all of my email. I have an account from Yahoo, Gmail, college, and one on this site. I use Ypops when accessing my email in Thunderbird because I don’t want to have to pay for pop access in Yahoo. I think it is ridiculous to have to pay for pop access when apparently Yahoo India, Singapore, Hong Kong, and some others give it out for free.

The reason I wanted to start using Gmail is because I want to be able to access all of my email from anywhere, and I can’t set up Thunderbird on every computer that I go to. So I did some searching, and I found a way to send your Yahoo email to Gmail using Getmail and Ypops.

You will need to download these two programs:

• Getmail
• Ypops

First run Ypops and follow these instructions:

1. Right click your Ypops icon in the system tray after you start it up, and click Configure.
2. Set the maximum number of emails to download. I have mine set to 40.
3. Set your download email category to All if you want to download all of your messages. Otherwise, set it to what you want.
4. Go to the Miscellaneous section, and select Automatically start Ypops when Windows starts if you want this option enabled.
5. You can close the Configure window now.

Now run Getmail and follow these instructions:

1. Right click the Getmail icon in the system tray and click Mail Settings.
2. Make sure only Run at Startup is selected under the Application menu.
3. Now since we aren’t interested in forwarding a Hotmail account, you will want to click the small red icon in the upper right of the window that says Extra Accounts Setup when you roll your mouse over it.
4. Once the Extra Accounts window is open, you will need to type in your full email address for your Yahoo account.
5. For Account Type, select YPOPS.
6. Type in your password for your Yahoo account.
7. In the Forward To box, type in the Gmail address that you would like to have your Yahoo mail forwarded to. It could actually be any email address, but for these instructions we are using Gmail.
8. Your Pop Server and Port should all be filled out, so you can skip those boxes.
9. Now under SMTP, you must type in a working SMTP server. This whole process will not work if you don’t type one in. I figured this out the hard way. You can use the SMTP server from any email address. I use the SMTP server that comes with my internet provider, so you may be able to use your internet providers SMTP address too.
10. Type in the port number and login information required for that SMTP server address.
11. Make sure Needs Auth is checked.
12. Now click Save at the bottom of the Window.
13. Now you are back at the Getmail window.
14. Click the Check For New Mail button in the bottom of the Window if you want to check for mail now. Otherwise you can close the window and let Getmail and Ypops run in the background. It will check for new mail every five minutes, unless you specified a different time interval.

Now all of your Yahoo email should be forwarded to your Gmail account. If something doesn’t work, then check your login information for your Yahoo account and for the SMTP server.

If you want to sort what email belongs to what address in your Gmail account, then you can set filters in your settings on Gmail. I’m not going to go through the details of how to do that because it is relatively easy. However, if you can’t figure that out, then don’t be afraid to ask in the comments below.

More information can be found on Getmails website, which is where I learned how to do this. If there is any other way that may be easier than the method mentioned above, then I’d love to hear it. You can let me know what you think in the comments below.

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Topics: Internet, Software, Windows |

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