Learn the Easiest Way to Download Yahoo! Mail to a PC

You can download your emails in Yahoo! Mail to your computer, storing them locally, by using an email client and the Post Office Protocols (POP) settings for Yahoo! Mail. 

You will need an email client that supports POP mail delivery, such as Mozilla's Thunderbird or Microsoft Outlook. Some popular email applications do not support POP, such as Spark and Apple Mail.

NOTE: Apple Mail on older versions of macOS can be set to use POP mail, but macOS El Capitan (10.11) and later do not support POP mail settings, only IMAP.

POP Versus IMAP

As you set up email accounts, you have probably encountered these two mail protocols in the past. The primary difference between them is straightforward:

• POP downloads your email messages to your local machine.
• IMAP only downloads temporary versions of your emails locally and keeps them stored on the email server as well.

IMAP is a newer protocol than POP. POP works best when you access your email with one computer only. For most people, this is not likely the case, so usually, IMAP is the better choice for email protocol since it better accommodates access from multiple computers. With IMAP, changes you make to your emails and account, such as marking them as read or deleting them, are sent and executed on the server as where your email is retrieved, too.

However, for purposes of downloading emails to store locally on your computer, POP is what you need.

Generally, when POP is used to retrieve your email messages, those messages are deleted from the server they are retrieved from, though email clients do allow you to change this functionality so that emails are not deleted off of the server when downloaded.

Saving Emails Using POP

If you want to save your emails locally on your computer, then POP is the protocol setting you can use to accomplish this.

When you set up your Yahoo! Mail account in your email client, you will need to specify POP as the protocol you wish to use as well as the Yahoo! Mail POP server settings.

Check the current POP settings for Yahoo! Mail.

Yahoo! Mail POP settings:

Incoming Mail (POP) Server

Server - pop.mail.yahoo.com
Port - 995
Requires SSL - Yes

Outgoing Mail (SMTP) Server

Server - smtp.mail.yahoo.com
Port - 465 or 587
Requires SSL - Yes
Requires TLS - Yes (if available)
Requires authentication - Yes

Each email client will have its own email account setup process, with many of them simplifying the process by populating server settings for you automatically when you select Yahoo! Mail as your email account.

However, email clients are likely to automatically set up Yahoo! Mail access using the more commonly used IMAP protocol. In this case, you will need to check your account's server settings.

POP Settings in Thunderbird on a Mac

In Thunderbird you can set your email account settings to use POP:

1. Click Tools in the top menu.
2. Click Account Settings.
3. In the Account Settings window under your Yahoo! Mail account, click Server Settings.
4. In the Server Name field, enter pop.mail.yahoo.com
5. In the Port field, enter 995.
6. Under Security Settings, make sure the Connection security drop-down menu is set to SSL/TLS.

POP Settings in Outlook on a Mac

You can set Outlook to use POP for your Yahoo! Mail account by following these steps:

1. Click Accounts.
2. In the Accounts window, select your Yahoo! Mail account in the left menu.
3. On the right under Server information, in the Incoming server field, enter pop.mail.yahoo.com
4. In the adjacent field following Incoming server, enter the port as 995.

If you are using a Windows PC, changing these settings in these email clients may be slightly different, but they will generally be in similar menu locations and labeled the same.