Skip to main content

Yahoo is making it harder for users to leave by disabling email forwarding

how yahoo is mining for gold in your junk mail campus
Global PR
Concerned by Yahoo’s historic data breach that affected some 500 million user accounts? Did you want to do something about it? Well, “too bad” appears to be the message Yahoo is sending to its users.

As first reported by the Associated Press, it would appear that the company has disabled automatic email forwarding, a feature that would allow Yahoo users to more easily switch over to a different email provider. For those who already had the feature enabled, nothing has changed, but those others who wanted to set it up in response to the recent hacking revelations are having much less luck.

Recommended Videos

Needless to say, this has infuriated some users, who are crying foul at the removal of what seems like an extremely standard feature for any email service. Email forwarding has been “a basic concept for 15 years for just about every email provider out there,” Brian McIntosh, who owns a small technology business and first alerted The Associated Press to the issue, told the publication. “All of a sudden it’s under development, and only at Yahoo,” he added.

Please enable Javascript to view this content

Yahoo originally declined to comment on its rather thinly veiled attempt to keep users on its platform, simply directing the AP to a post on its Help Site that provides some elucidation as to the feature’s status. It says, “This feature is under development. While we work to improve it, we’ve temporarily disabled the ability to turn on Mail Forwarding for new forwarding addresses. If you’ve already enabled Mail Forwarding in the past, your email will continue to forward to the address you previously configured.”

In a statement given to TechCrunch on Monday evening, Yahoo further noted, “We’re working to get auto-forward back up and running as soon as possible because we know how useful it can be to our users. The feature was temporary disabled as part of previously planned maintenance to improve its functionality between a user’s various accounts. Users can expect an update to the auto-forward functionality soon. In the meantime, we continue to support multiple account management. ”

Lulu Chang
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Fascinated by the effects of technology on human interaction, Lulu believes that if her parents can use your new app…
PayPal vs. Venmo vs. Cash App vs. Apple Cash: which app should you use?
PayPal, Venmo, Cash App, and Apple Wallet apps on an iPhone.

We’re getting closer every day to an entirely cashless society. While some folks may still carry around a few bucks for emergencies, electronic payments are accepted nearly everywhere, and as mobile wallets expand, even traditional credit and debit cards are starting to fall by the wayside.

That means many of us are past the days of tossing a few bills onto the table to pay our share of a restaurant tab or slipping our pal a couple of bucks to help them out. Now, even those things are more easily doable from our smartphones than our physical wallets.

Read more
How to change margins in Google Docs
Laptop Working from Home

When you create a document in Google Docs, you may need to adjust the space between the edge of the page and the content --- the margins. For instance, many professors have requirements for the margin sizes you must use for college papers.

You can easily change the left, right, top, and bottom margins in Google Docs and have a few different ways to do it.

Read more
What is Microsoft Teams? How to use the collaboration app
A close-up of someone using Microsoft Teams on a laptop for a videoconference.

Online team collaboration is the new norm as companies spread their workforce across the globe. Gone are the days of primarily relying on group emails, as teams can now work together in real time using an instant chat-style interface, no matter where they are.

Using Microsoft Teams affords video conferencing, real-time discussions, document sharing and editing, and more for companies and corporations. It's one of many collaboration tools designed to bring company workers together in an online space. It’s not designed for communicating with family and friends, but for colleagues and clients.

Read more