Yahoo Authentication Errors with Betterbird

InquiringMind · 22 Sep 2024, 06:33 AM

I am trying to help the family of a friend who is no longer among us.
Changing the email account is not an option.

The Yahoo account has about 750,000 emails in it. Most are marked unread.
The person never really understood how email is supposed to work and there are mixed in important business information with tons of ad garbage.

The account was switched to Yahoo Plus to make for some improvement in access, but organizing and searching in Yahoo is difficult bordering on impossible.

I made hundreds of folders and moved about 4000 to 8000 emails into each folder.

I setup Betterbird with the Username, email address, password and server credentials.
I got the browser confirm windows to authorize IMAP client use.

export.imap.mail.yahoo.com 993 SSL/TLS OAuth2
smtp.mail.yahoo.com 465 OAuth2

I was able to download headers for all the folders, and get message counts, and start deleting emails and trying to search and sort, but then I started getting Authentication errors over and over.

I tried closing and reopening Betterbird. No improvement.
I tried creating an app password in Yahoo webmail and inserting the password into Betterbird, but Yahoo would not accept the app password that I created using Yahoo's web based interface.

I am flummoxed and stuck.
Basic functions of looking at emails and opening and deleting work, but searching or sorting just creates a flood of authentication errors.

Any ideas ???

22 Sep 2024, 06:33 AM	#1
InquiringMind Senior Member Join Date: Apr 2015 Posts: 116	Yahoo Authentication Errors with Betterbird I am trying to help the family of a friend who is no longer among us. Changing the email account is not an option. The Yahoo account has about 750,000 emails in it. Most are marked unread. The person never really understood how email is supposed to work and there are mixed in important business information with tons of ad garbage. The account was switched to Yahoo Plus to make for some improvement in access, but organizing and searching in Yahoo is difficult bordering on impossible. I made hundreds of folders and moved about 4000 to 8000 emails into each folder. I setup Betterbird with the Username, email address, password and server credentials. I got the browser confirm windows to authorize IMAP client use. export.imap.mail.yahoo.com 993 SSL/TLS OAuth2 smtp.mail.yahoo.com 465 OAuth2 I was able to download headers for all the folders, and get message counts, and start deleting emails and trying to search and sort, but then I started getting Authentication errors over and over. I tried closing and reopening Betterbird. No improvement. I tried creating an app password in Yahoo webmail and inserting the password into Betterbird, but Yahoo would not accept the app password that I created using Yahoo's web based interface. I am flummoxed and stuck. Basic functions of looking at emails and opening and deleting work, but searching or sorting just creates a flood of authentication errors. Any ideas ???