So what's the best thing to do with Yahoo Mail, Flickr, etc.?

January 10, 2017 2:19 AM

Given the recent news, does anyone have best practice links and tips to transfer accounts?

I have a chunk of Flickr photos dating back a decade or so and, much more pressingly, my entire professional life bound-up in a twenty-year old yahoo mail account, including contacts and many, many gigs of attachments, etc. I also run Gmail but never really got on with the interface (preferring folders as a way of organising things - old school). Is now the time to learn?

Can I just push a button somewhere and get all this stuff from Yahoo into Gmail? Presumably it will also cost me as I can't see everything fitting into Google's 15GB monthly plan. Your advice is very welcome.

posted by srednivashtar to Computers & Internet (11 answers total)

Can't help with the transfer, but regarding folders and Gmail - use labels as folders. Any email you want to put in a "folder", add the relevant label and archive it. Archiving takes it out of the inbox. Granted, that's a two-step process (add label, then archive) instead of one step (move to folder), however you can still set up filters to automatically move specific incoming email "to a folder". To do that, create a new filter that uses the actions "Skip the Inbox (Archive it)" and "Apply the label".
You can also nest labels under other labels just like nested folders.
posted by EndsOfInvention at 2:55 AM on January 10, 2017 [1 favorite]

There's also a Gmail Labs add-on called Send & Archive which is handy. Basically it lets you reply to an email, and click one button that both sends the reply and archives the whole thread, removing it from the inbox. Saves you the extra click of archiving or re-archiving an email thread.
posted by EndsOfInvention at 2:58 AM on January 10, 2017 [1 favorite]

I don't have a definitive link for you. But what I've found is that yahoo.com mail isn't going away anytime soon. The newly named organization are the assets that are not a part of the acquisition by Verizon. The new Altaba group holds significant Alibaba investments.

This Arstechnica article clarifies things somewhat. The comments, the continued existence of yahoo email accounts.

Basically, I think your good for now. But it wouldn't hurt putting a contingency plan into action.
posted by michswiss at 4:11 AM on January 10, 2017 [2 favorites]

In Gmail settings (the gear icon), click Accounts and Import. There is a link to "import from Yahoo!, Hotmail, AOL, or other webmail or POP3 accounts." This will give you the option to import contacts, old mail, and new mail for the next 30 days. The mail will automatically be labeled with your Yahoo account so it's easy to find. However, this will only import from your Yahoo Inbox and not any folders you created, so if you want to import those, you'll have to move them to the inbox.
posted by beyond_pink at 5:41 AM on January 10, 2017 [10 favorites]

I don't think there's a one button solution to this, but you can use a tool like imapsize to download all of your Yahoo mail. This may take a long time. Then you can use that same tool to upload your email to Gmail or drag and drop all of it into Thunderbird.

And yes, it's time to learn Gmail.
posted by gregr at 7:03 AM on January 10, 2017 [1 favorite]

Piggybacking to anxiously await if there's a fix for the Flickr photos: is there a similar import feature in Google Photos for OP and me?
posted by fiercecupcake at 7:11 AM on January 10, 2017 [2 favorites]

No, there is no easy import from Flickr to Google photos that I have found. What I have found is various third party software that will let you download specific Sets from Flickr to your hard drive. Find one that will let you download the full size. Make sure every photo is in a Set (using Organizr) and then download each Set. Use Google Photos to sync the resulting folders from your hard drive. This may or may not keep titles, but tags are almost certainly not going to copy over. Lesson learned: don't keep your only copy of a file in a single cloud account. Keep another copy in at least one other cloud account.
posted by soelo at 8:30 AM on January 10, 2017

I haven't stayed on top of this transition very well. Is the consensus that Flickr will not survive?
posted by baseballpajamas at 9:48 AM on January 10, 2017

The thread on the blue that is linked in the question has lots of speculation and mostly hope that it will stay open. I don't think the consensus is closing, but more that changes will happen and we need to be prepared for that.
posted by soelo at 10:01 AM on January 10, 2017 [1 favorite]

Based on the comments above and general principles, I would start by figuring out how to get a local backup. You probably have some time to figure out the rest.
posted by SemiSalt at 12:04 PM on January 10, 2017

There is a good comment in that thread about a way to do it inside of Flickr, however people have reported varying degrees of success. It seems like you can get 500 in each zip file.
posted by soelo at 12:42 PM on January 10, 2017