I’ve decided that when I find fixes to problems, I will share them here on my blog. This post covers to use an IMAP server for Yahoo and BT Internet email. I had searched all over the Internet for the solution and no-one seemed to have the answer. Surprisingly, I found the answer myself on Yahoo’s site. Let me start with why I was looking for a solution.
I have 2 Yahoo email accounts and also 2 BT Internet email accounts (from my days as a BT customer). I wanted to set them up in Outlook using IMAP and not POP3. For those of you who don’t know what the difference is; IMAP follows the folder structure on your email server. POP3 downloads emails to your local machine (unless you ask for them to be saved on the server) and any sent emails are stored on your local machine. The main disadvantage to using POP3 is that if you have an email address set up on multiple devices, then you can’t easily keep track of your sent emails. For example, if I set up my Yahoo email on my PC in Outlook using POP3 and send an email, I will not be able to see the sent email on my iPhone, because the sent message is stored on my PC.
So here is the answer for setting up an IMAP server for Yahoo and BT Internet email:
The following refers to Outlook 2007.


Click More Settings and you will be brought to the pages below:
DON’T forget to specify the sent folder that you wish to use on the server
So to recap (in case you can’t see all the images), the settings are:
Incoming
Server = imap.mail.yahoo.com
Type = IMAP
Username = xxxx@yahoo.com (xxxx@btinternet.com also worked fine for me)
Password = as normal
Security = SSL
Port = 993
Outgoing
Server = smtp.mail.yahoo.com
Type = SMTP
Username = xxxx@yahoo.com (xxxx@btinternet.com also worked fine for me)
Password = as normal
Security = SSL
Port = 465
These settings have been used to successfully configure my accounts on my HTC Desire HD and Outlook 2007 on my desktop PC and netbook.
Happy configuring!
Great information Dee! Worked a treat for my Outlook; I’d also been looking for a solution to this for a while. You are the tech Guru!
Also worked great in Outlook 2010; main difference from your (Outlook 2007) notes is at the start of the setup process – when prompted to ‘Choose Serrvice’ select the ‘Internet E-Mail’ option as opposed to the ‘Microsoft Exchange or compatible service’ option.
Many thanks for your most helpful info – it reduced hours of configuration effort to just a few minutes – now I can synch mail folders between desktop and laptop without having to copy PST files!
Natalie and Chris, I’m really pleased that it helped. Chris, thank you for the Outlook 2010 update. I will add this to the article as an update.
Dee.
Great info. Popped these details into my HTC Desire (on 3) and it’s working a treat.
Derek.
Excellent! Works on Windows Live Mail as well (slight differences)
Pleased it helped!
Great piece of advice. Didn’t know that BT had IMAP servers. Helps enormously with my Dell Laptop, Blackberry and Ipad2 combo!
You’re welcome Mick. I wrote the article as a result of my frustration of finding the correct IMAP settings for my BT Internet accounts. I’m pleased that the article is helping lots of people in the same boat!
Thank you so much for sharing this I have been trying to find the right settings to do this for ages!!
You are welcome. I’ve begun to realise that I’ve got quite a few solutions to problems and will blog about them soon.
you would not know how to deal with this re setting up an account on iPhone would you?
when I set up my btinternet account, it automatically defaults to POP3, and does not give me the option to configure to IMAP (?). Any advice? Thank you
Hi Robert.
When setting up use the Yahoo option. So on your iPhone go to:
Settings>Add Account>Select Yahoo.
At the next screen, fill in the details below
Name : Whatever you want displayed
Address: Your BT Internet email address
Password: Your BT Internet email password
Description: Whatever you want to use to identify the account.
It literally takes 30 seconds to configure. Let me know how you get on
[...] can also use Outlook to extract your email from BT Yahoo. The instructions are in a blog post, Use an IMAP server for Yahoo and BT Internet email. IMAP downloads mail to your desktop, so you have a copy that you can back up, while leaving it on [...]
[...] can also use Outlook to extract your email from BT Yahoo. The instructions are in a blog post, Use an IMAP server for Yahoo and BT Internet email. IMAP downloads mail to your desktop, so you have a copy that you can back up, while leaving it on [...]