Backing up Yahoo mail

[Barkley Hound]

Many people use the Yahoo email website but it does its own backup which does not always work. It seems that the only way to backup the email to your computer would be to use IMAP.

I know that IMAP keeps everything in sync. What would happen if someone deleted email while on the website? Would the Thunderbird version also be deleted?

This is the flaw that I see in using it as a backup. Let's say that you actually copied the profile as a further backup and later replaced it. Would it then sync with the online version defeating its purpose?

[DanRaisch]

Would the Thunderbird version also be deleted?

Yes.

If you want a backup you could set up message filters to move arriving messages to sub-folders of Local Folders.

[tanstaafl]

See http://kb.mozillazine.org/IMAP_backup (if you haven't already chosen a solution). See http://kb.mozillazine.org/Importing_folders for how to import the offline folders from your backup into something like Local Folders. You could then move the messages normally, and not worry about them being lost when the offline folders are synched.