From undisclosed data breaches to email scanning, there are plenty of reasons to delete Yahoo Mail for good. Read along to learn how to delete a Yahoo account permanently.
Yahoo has been a dominant email and search provider since the early ‘90s. And while they were eventually usurped in both arenas, Yahoo continues to service over 200 million users daily. But there’s a good reason why so many other users have left Yahoo for greener pastures: security. Throughout the last decade, Yahoo has been the subject of many scandals and data breaches. In fact, they hold the title for the largest data breach on record.
In this article, we’ll review how to delete a Yahoo account permanently and why you should, along with steps to preserve your account data before deleting Yahoo.
Let’s dive in.
How to delete Yahoo account permanently
If you’ve disconnected existing subscriptions and backed up data, then you’re ready. (If not, jump ahead to start that first.)
Follow these steps to delete Yahoo for good:
- Sign in to the dedicated Yahoo account termination page located in your Dashboard.
- Review the termination information, reminding you to export important information and disable subscriptions or connections. Closing your account could take 30-180 days depending on the region you’re based, at which point someone else may register your Yahoo name.
- Select Continue delete my account.
- You may be asked to log in again. Enter the email address of the Yahoo account you are closing, then hit Yes, terminate this account.
Once you’ve completed all the steps, you’ll be told that your account has been scheduled for deletion. It’s common among email providers and subscription services to offer this as a window of opportunity for reactivation. But keep in mind that your account will be reactivated if you sign in during the scheduled window after closing it. So don’t sign back into your Yahoo account, otherwise, you’ll have to restart the entire process again.
For most accounts, that’s a 30-day window. Yahoo accounts registered in Australia, India, and New Zealand have to wait 90 days; accounts in Brazil, Hong Kong, and Taiwan have to wait 180 days.
Should you delete Yahoo?
Yes, it’s certainly time to shut down your Yahoo account. The company’s continually poor handling of data breaches raises too many concerns to stick with them when there are so many popular alternatives for email.
In 2013, Yahoo suffered its first data breach of user data but refrained from disclosing the attack. Then the company experienced a 2014 attack, which they again hesitated to disclose. And the personal data stolen included :
- Names
- Email addresses
- Password
- Dates of birth
- Telephone numbers
- Security questions and answers
It wasn’t until September 2016 that Yahoo first reported the 2014 attack, which affected over 500 million Yahoo users. Three months later, Yahoo finally revealed its 2013 breach to the public, thought to expose the data of 1 million users. Then in October 2017, the extent of the attack was realized. Every single one of Yahoo’s 3 billion users was affected by their 2013 breach – nearly 50% of all internet users. Both data breaches are considered the largest in history.
While Yahoo has taken steps to improve their security posture since, it’s hard to trust whether they’re capable of preventing future attacks—or whether they’ve already failed (again) and just haven’t told us yet.
And that’s all without mentioning other risks posed to information within Yahoo, from reports of government scanning and invasive advertising practices, and cancellation complications.
Before you delete your Yahoo account
It would be nice if you could just take the whole Yahoo account and throw it away without a second thought. Prior to smashing that delete button, though, consider what may be connected to your Yahoo Mail account. Do you use this account to manage any bills or services? Are there any special files to save from your inbox?
It’s also important to remember that deleting your Yahoo account will affect more than just Yahoo Mail. You’ll also lose access to all your data and content on Yahoo’s other services, including Yahoo Fantasy Sports along with any portfolios on Yahoo Finance. This may also affect older Flickr photo accounts made prior to 2019.
Take a moment to review these items before deleting your Yahoo account, avoiding complications and future data loss:
Cancel subscriptions to Yahoo services
It’s important to cancel any subscriptions to Yahoo’s paid services like Yahoo Mail Pro and Yahoo Finance Premium prior to deleting your account. Not only will this ensure you avoid surprise charges (and subsequent headaches), it’s a requirement to delete your Yahoo account.
In an attempt to prevent subscription cancellations, Yahoo requires its users to wait 90 days after canceling a subscription before a Yahoo account can be terminated. So, if you have subscriptions to end, you’ll then have to wait three months for the opportunity to schedule your Yahoo account deletion.
Request a copy of your account data
Before terminating your Yahoo account, you can save a backup of your data. We recommend you start this early if you want a copy because it can take up to 30 days to generate the download, especially if you’ve used your account for a long time.
Follow these steps to request a download of your data:
- Go to the Privacy Dashboard page and select Yahoo
- Sign in to see your account data
- Scroll to the bottom of the page and select Request a download
- Check the boxes for the product data you want to be included in your download, then select Next
- Enter the email address you’d like to be notified at once the download is ready and select Download request
- When the download is ready, a download link will be sent to the email address you gave. This can take up to a month to receive, so don’t panic if it doesn’t arrive within the day or even a week later.
Remove third party access
Most websites and apps require an email address to maintain access to their services. If your Yahoo email address is connected to Netflix, for example, you will need to change the email linked to the service in question. Without access, you may be unable to reset your password or correct billing information.
Replacing the login email with another email address should be easy enough, and ensures you won’t lose access once you delete your Yahoo account.
Export your contacts
You most likely have some contacts saved within Yahoo Mail, especially if you’ve had the account for a while. Fortunately, Yahoo made it easy to export them:
- Navigate to Contacts within your Yahoo Mail account
- Go to Actions
- Select Export
You can then export your contact list as a .csv file and save them to import into another email platform in the future.
Download email data
This last step may be the most obvious, yet it’s the easiest to forget: save the data of your most important emails!
You probably have some attachments to sift through, documents to download, photos to save, and maybe some essential emails to store for safekeeping.
The fastest way to get this data over to another email account is to simply send it. So, if you already know to want to send old files to your Gmail account, for instance, just forward them right over.
But if you’re not sure what you want to do with your old data – you just know you want to save it – you can download your emails as files and save them straight to your device. Simply open the email, select Print, and in the print settings preview, save the email as a PDF instead.
While the process to ditch Yahoo has grown more complicated with its multiple services and time restrictions on sunsetting accounts, you can still delete your Yahoo account if you follow the steps laid out above.
It’s upsetting to think about someone tracking your every move online. So we’re going to close with one of the most important steps you can take whether you’re using Yahoo or not: stay proactive in your online privacy efforts. Choose your next email provider with care, arm yourself with some online safety basics, and use a good VPN service to shield your network connection.
