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When you try to manage multiple mail accounts through a single interface, things can look simpler than they actually are. You may open Yahoo Mail in your browser, add an outside account, and believe all of your correspondence is flowing into one safe place. In practice, the relationship is often thinner than it appears. Yahoo shows you the outside account in real time, but it does not absorb or host that content. If you depend on AT&T or one of its older domains, your mail still lives with AT&T’s servers. That difference becomes important when you begin to think about an IMAP backup or a dedicated Yahoo backup, because the settings you choose decide which mailbox you truly secure.
Today we discuss the specifics of connecting such accounts with Mail Backup X. You will see why choosing the correct IMAP details makes all the difference, how to avoid common traps in configuration, and how the tool turns what could be a confusing process into something repeatable.
The same applies whether you are setting up an IMAP backup for AT&T, configuring a Yahoo backup, or dealing with another provider that still runs on legacy domains.
Yahoo lets you add outside accounts, but the arrangement is closer to a viewing layer than to a merger. The Yahoo mailbox stays on Yahoo’s servers, while your AT&T or bellsouth.net mailbox remains hosted at AT&T. Adding one into the other does not move data across; it only makes the interface look unified.
To back up AT&T mail, you connect directly to imap.mail.att.net on port 993 with SSL enabled, using your full email address as the username and the Secure Mail Key as the password. Connecting through Yahoo’s IMAP settings, imap.mail.yahoo.com, would only ever reach your native Yahoo mailbox.
POP accounts download and store messages by default, but IMAP keeps everything tied to the provider’s servers. That reliance can be fragile over years of service changes, mergers, and domain retirements. A local copy created through an IMAP backup process gives you independence. It also gives you the freedom to search old mail on your own machine, migrate to another provider without friction, and store multiple copies of your correspondence across drives for resilience.
Mail Backup X is designed to work with IMAP profiles in a way that minimizes the ongoing effort. You create a profile once, enter the details of the account, and then let the software continue the work. Incremental updates, compression, and encryption are handled quietly in the background.
You end up with a self-maintained backups of your Yahoo, AT&T, or other IMAP-based mail, stored on your own system and updated without any need for daily supervision.
Note: Many people try their everyday login password here, but for IMAP backup you almost always need the provider’s special key or app password.
Providers require this extra step because IMAP access from third-party tools is treated differently from web or mobile login. For AT&T, you must generate a Secure Mail Key through the AT&T account management portal; for Yahoo, you create an app password from the Yahoo account security page; for Gmail, Outlook.com, and iCloud, similar app-specific passwords are mandatory if two-factor authentication is enabled.
These special keys are long, system-generated strings designed to bypass the normal web login sequence while still respecting modern security policies. If you attempt to use your usual password, authentication will almost always fail, even if you recently reset it, because the server expects this dedicated key instead.
Always generate the key directly from your provider’s official security settings page, copy it exactly as shown, and paste it into Mail Backup X without spaces or edits.
Note: If you added AT&T into Yahoo Mail, don’t use Yahoo’s IMAP server for backing it up. Yahoo only shows the AT&T inbox, it doesn’t host it.
Once this is configured, Mail Backup X continues capturing new mail automatically, regardless of which IMAP provider you’re using.
Mistakes are easy to make if you are not attentive to details.
Many users assume that once they have added their AT&T account into Yahoo Mail, Yahoo’s IMAP settings will serve for backup. That leads only to a copy of the Yahoo mailbox, leaving the AT&T messages untouched.
Another common error is entering the normal account password instead of the Secure Mail Key, which results in failed authentication. Keeping in mind who truly hosts the account helps you avoid these issues.
The archive you create is a safe copy of your emails, but as you continue to use it, you will realize how it extends far beyond that original role.
Mail Backup X comes with a built-in viewer, allowing you to read, browse, and search all backed-up mail directly from the application. You can also export individual messages in formats such as PDF or EML, or restore the full mailbox into another client or account. Even once the trial period ends, the ability to open and search the archive remains available.
These principles extend across all IMAP providers. Each one requires its own official server address, the proper port, and sometimes an application-specific password or security key. Adding one account into another through webmail does not alter where the data is stored. When you give Mail Backup X the correct server details, it treats each account consistently, whether the task is a Yahoo backup or a long-retired domain address.
Long-term, control over your own archive means you are not subject to sudden changes in access or policy. Providers adjust domains, merge systems, or retire services, and in each case the accounts tied to them become less predictable. When you maintain your own incremental IMAP backup, you carry your history forward on your own terms. You can also explore Mail Backup X in its free trial version before committing. That way you see how the software fits into your own setup, and you still hold a working archive of your mail even after the trial ends. The ability to search and review that archive without limit means your Yahoo backup or AT&T backup never turns into a locked file, rather it stays a living resource you can return to whenever you need it.
