Paradise

In light of YahooGroups deleting group content on December 14th, here is a list of download tools you may use to download all of the photos, files, and messages of any YahooGroup you are a member of. Good luck and let me know if you have any questions!



With a few exceptions, most of the Yahoo Groups require that you become a member.

Yahoo has 2 types of Groups:
1, Automatic Membership (anyone can click and join)
2. Moderator Approval membership. If you plan to join a Group that requires moderator approval, here are some sample messages to send to the list owner.
Always start with Yahoo


Once you have finished joining your Groups, submit a request to Yahoo/Verizon asking them to send you a download of your Group data (GetMyData). It will include messages, but none of the photos and only a few of the files. Your deadline is Dec 14, 2019 (although we recommend submitting your data request by Dec 1, 2019 to be safe).
Direct link: https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/getmydata

Free (Easy) - Mac and PC

The Chrome Message Downloader extension is a free tool that anyone can use (Mac or PC) on their Chrome browser.
Pros: free, Mac or PC
Cons: It will only download messages, not files or photos. Messages are in plain text so hyperlinks (links to other websites) and formatting will be lost

Free (Advanced) - Mac and PC

Python (link)
Pros: can download Photos, Files and Messages. Faster and more complete. Plus...Free!
Cons: The messages will not be in an immediately human-readable format (json). May be too difficult for beginners to install

Paid - PC (Easy)

PGOffline
Pros: This is the best one stop solution - it will download your files, photos, and your messages in a readable format.
Cons: a one time fee for $25. There is a free trial version that you can try. It will only download 1000 messages or files. The license process is manual - you need to send an email to the developer. He typically responds in 48hrs.

Tutorial (link) or (link)
Video: (link)
Help Others Download (Free)

You can also help the Archive Team (a non-fandom group) who have developed a Chrome plugin that will allow you to join Automatic Membership groups with a temporary Yahoo account. The Archive Team will then take it from there and will do the downloading. Note: this plugin focuses on both fandom and non-fandom groups and the files will not be sent to Open Doors. If you are backing up a fandom group for submission to Open Doors, use one of the other tools listed above.

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I chose the PGOffline software (1000 messages for the free trial, then $25 to download as much content as you want), and I am currently downloading!



*this is so exciting* I love when developers and programmers figure out how to do something and share it with the rest of us. They are good people.

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Note that Yahoo will be deleting all of the user content - messages, files, photos, etc. come December 14, so please don't count on any of them being there after that point! (And I've heard the photos are chancy even now sometimes.) I recommend using one of the methods listed here to back them up: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...QDJH62m-w/edit

Best wishes with archiving,
Paradise / Mercy Derevko