A simple process for deleting your Yahoo! Mail account..

Darryl, one of this blog readers, asked me how to delete a Yahoo account? Well, to make a long story short, the account deletion process isn’t well documented and might be a bit frustrating. Moreover, before deleting an account you must be aware of the possible negative effects on your data completeness and email identity. Therefore, i decided to document the best practices that should be used in order to cancel a Yahoo account, in case any of my readers will need it in the future. Due to the fact this is an important issue, i strongly recommend that you bookmark this page.

So here’s what you need to know before you delete your Yahoo account:

1. Even after you delete your yahoo mail account, people will be able to send you emails for 90 days following the account deletion.
2. If you delete your Yahoo email account you are actually also deleting your all the data associated with your Yahoo account: emails, address book, group memberships, photos, 360 blogs etc’. You’ll also loose your Yahoo Messenger id and other Yahoo services.
3. Note that after deleting your Yahoo! account you won’t be able to re-create it.
4. If you close your account, someone can potentially open a new account with the same name, thus actually taking over your email identity.
5. If you subscribed to any premium services (business hosting etc’), cancel those first—before you delete your account. Yahoo doesn’t guarantee that deleting your Yahoo account will immediately cancel the billing for any premium services you’re subscribed to. This is a crucial point if you are hosting your website or blog with Yahoo.

If you still want to delete proceed as following:

1. Go over your Yahoo mailbox and search for important emails you would like to keep. Send them to your other email address. Note that you if you are using Yahoo in a web client, you won’t be able to export your mailbox automatically.
2. Grab your list of active contacts and update them that your yahoo email address won’t be active any more (remember, mails might reach your yahoo account in the following 90 days without you be able to read them.
3. Export your contacts records to Outlook or Thunderbird.
4. Navigate to the termination page and click Terminate. An alternative approach which I recommend in case you don’t want to use Yahoo email any more, is to simply stop using it. After 90 days of no activity, Yahoo will automatically close your account.

Feel free to look into these related tips:

• How to delete my hotmail account?
• How to delete an Orkut account?
• How to delete your Facebook account ?

Posted by Gili

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34 Comments

34 Responses to “How to delete a Yahoo! account ?”

1. on 16 Jun 2007 at 4:32 pm1Ed Kohler

   I think I’d set up an auto-responder for the old account rather than deleting it in order to avoid the identity issues you mention above.

2. on 18 Jun 2007 at 5:16 pm2Spawners: Tech links you dont want to miss

   [...] How to delete a Yahoo account ? [...]

3. on 19 Jun 2007 at 7:16 am3mv3gp

   this is nice info. I have problem with yahoo billing i have 3 domains with them though i transferout but yahoo billing dept charged my credit card and when i wrote to them they said you have to file the process and call us in business hour. So i place a dispute with my bank and it is headache so please make sure your cancel all the billing it is very important.

4. on 19 Jun 2007 at 11:37 am4Shankar Ganesh

   Gonna delete my Yahoo! Account straight away. I have nothing there except a few newsletters arriving

5. on 19 Jun 2007 at 2:11 pm5Nirmal

   Even if you are not using Yahoo or any Email account, Why is there the need to delete it? Anyways they are not going to charge for it. I wouldnt delete any of my accounts for this reason.

6. on 21 Jun 2007 at 5:23 am6Vijay

   I second Nirmal.. and also as you said, it is better to stop using it and inform your contacts not to mail you in that address.. Deleting can potentially cause a lot of problems.
   And of course, I can always use the reserve account to register at sites which require compulsory reg. for viewing posts etc.

7. on 21 Jun 2007 at 8:28 am7Gili

   You guys have a point, and that’s exactly what i was recommending in my post. Note however that after an inactivity period, Yahoo closes the account automatically and then someone can take over your mail identity. I believe Ed has a point. An auto-responder + a quick email to your contacts referring them to your other mail id should work better.

8. on 22 Jun 2007 at 5:04 am8Shashank

   @Gili
   Yahoo don’t close any account ..they just inactivate it….if you are opening your yahoo mail account once in a year then also i don’t think they will close your account.. its my personal experience ..

9. on 24 Jun 2007 at 1:01 pm9Listikalz IV - Reward Regular Readers Of Listikal.com

   [...] How to Delete a Yahoo Account(Gili/AVirtualExit) – Gili helps out in ridding of that Yahoo account that incredibly old Yahoo account you never use anymore. [...]

10. on 13 Jul 2007 at 10:54 am10nunipi

    Thanks for the tips! I have been trying to redirect mail from my Yahoo account for several months, but have yet to figure out how to do it, so am giving up on Yahoo entirely (crap support!) and have just deleted the account using the delete_user page. Good riddance to a waste of time! My gmail account works so much better…

11. on 16 Jul 2007 at 6:26 am11Anonymous

    dnt want it

12. on 07 Aug 2007 at 4:48 pm12louis

    Idon’t want the yahoo account any more to use this account and i don’t want to receive the offline messages from other, if any one send the message to this mail id i.e pratima_louis@yahoo.com the message shows to them as this account is not using.

13. on 22 Aug 2007 at 3:16 pm13Sadegh

    please Delete my acount…
    I forget My password, Can you Delet it…?

14. on 31 Aug 2007 at 7:55 am14subhro bera

    I want to create a new account as i cant have some of my EMAIL in time

15. on 21 Sep 2007 at 11:04 am15venkatesh

    How to delete a yahoo messenger id? Please help

16. on 06 Oct 2007 at 2:43 pm16AFZAN

    i want delete this E-mail ID

17. on 25 Oct 2007 at 9:14 am17sohan

    plz let me know how to delete the damn yahoo account,
    coz i realy dont want to continue due to some personal reason,,
    mail me at plz: sonyonly4u2002@yahoo.com
    thnx

18. on 08 Nov 2007 at 4:39 am18denise

    delete account

19. on 16 Nov 2007 at 6:58 pm19Richard

    Hi guys, i need some help here

    some days back i deleted one of my yahoo accounts without taking any back up of my address book. I lost all contacts and now am traying to retrieve it but am not finding a way to do so. IF any one have witnessed this kinda of an issue, please do let me know how to resolve it.

20. on 17 Nov 2007 at 9:34 pm20mer

    i want delet my account

21. on 25 Nov 2007 at 3:54 am21william pekar

    iamdeleting yahoo.com because every time i come on and put myid in and my password i can not get in my email soiam deleting thank youwilliam pekar

22. on 27 Nov 2007 at 5:25 am22lipi

    I want del may account . beacause it is a old account..and I have a new account……..

23. on 03 Dec 2007 at 3:37 pm23Cindy Koontz

    I would like to know how to delete my current yahoo account and open a new one?

24. on 04 Jan 2008 at 11:00 pm24maryam

    I forget My password, Can i Delet it?please please help me how???????thanks so much

25. on 13 Jan 2008 at 11:11 am25kulya

    how to delete yahoo account”

26. on 23 Jan 2008 at 2:36 pm26Rakesh

    is there a way to remove the database entry for a yahoo email account immediately after deleting the account.
    Can you please help me here I want to delete a acount and recreate the same acount with different domain. for example currently i have acount name@yahoo.com but i want to create name@yahoo.co.in acount.

    Thanks in advance

27. on 23 Feb 2008 at 8:37 am27anjuverma_16

    Yahoo don’t close any account ..they just inactivate it….if you are opening your yahoo mail account once in a year then also i don’t think they will close your account.. its my personal experience ..

28. on 22 May 2008 at 9:04 pm28rajesh mishra

    Idon’t want the yahoo account any more to use this account and i don’t want to receive the offline messages from other, if any one send the message to this mail id because my account has been used by some one else i..e.., my mail id has been hacked

29. on 08 Sep 2008 at 4:17 pm29HMISSA

    welcome
    my e-mail is blocked therfore windows pop-up usafis also blocked
    want cancel and close my account yahoo
    you are able for closing and close table usafis green card

30. on 13 Sep 2008 at 9:17 am30Mai

    Hii I Deleted My Yahoo Account Since Three Or Two Months But My Flickr Account Is Still There But I Cant Enter It Help Plz

31. on 25 Nov 2008 at 1:35 pm31Billly

    If i deleted my account..but i wanna remake one with the same name? how can I…it keeps saying the account is taken and i deleted it a day ago

32. on 11 Mar 2009 at 9:48 pm32kathy carroll

    please terminate my email and yahoo account

33. on 31 Jul 2009 at 5:40 pm33Thomas M

    “Note that after deleting your Yahoo! account you won’t be able to re-create it.”

    Even though Yahoo had this information on their website, this is not true. I’ve deleted my account and have recreated it several times. Well, three or four times.

    “Navigate to the termination page and click Terminate. An alternative approach which I recommend in case you don’t want to use Yahoo email any more, is to simply stop using it. After 90 days of no activity, Yahoo will automatically close your account. ”

    This is not true. I’ve went for periods of nearly a year without using my Yahoo account, a few times. It’s never closed automatically.

34. on 14 Aug 2009 at 5:02 am34cassandra ryers

    please delete the yahoo toolbar

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