I've noticed there's not much in the way of documentation of YahooPops and I thought I'd help out my fellow OSX users with the installation of this extremely handy little program. I've put together the following installation guide, hopefully with enough details that even a unix newbie can get this going. Here goes:
Installing YahooPops on Mac OS X
1. Download the Mac OS X version of YahooPOPs! (Don't worry that it's called "Server Edition")
2. If the file yahoopops-0.3.9.2-mac.tar.gz isn't automatically decompressed, you'll have to do it yourself.
- a. Open a Terminal window
b. Navigate to the directory where the file is kept. This will most likely be /Users/<you>/Downloads or /Users/<you>/Desktop. (For unix newbies: use 'ls' to list files, 'cd <directory name> to change a directory, 'pwd' to see which directory you are currently in.)
c. When you find yahoopops-0.3.9.2-mac.tar.gz, run the following command:
- gzip -dc yahoopops-0.3.9.2-mac.tar.gz | tar xvf -
4. Type "make" at the prompt
5. Copy the yahoopops binary to a permanent location. I've placed mine in /usr/local/bin, but you could alternatively put it in your home directory or the applications directory.
- cp yahoopops /usr/local/bin
6. Edit the .cshrc file in your home directory to automatically start yahoopops when you login.
- vi ~/.cshrc
Arrow down, and at the bottom of the file type the letter "o" and type the path to your yahoopops binary.. eg: "/usr/local/bin/yahoopops &" . To save and quit hit the following 5 keys: <esc> : w q <return>
Configuring YahooPops to Download Mail
1. Copy the file yahoopops_samplerc to your home directory and call it ".yahoopops" (Note the preceding "."):
- cp yahoopops_samplerc ~/.yahoopops
3. I'm not going to get into all the things you can configure in this file to customize your mail download, but here's a few things I have modified:
- - Set USE_PROXY_SERVER to 0.
- Changed EMPTY_TRASH_ON_EXIT to 0 so all the e-mail will be transferred to the Trash folder, but not deleted.
- LEAVE_MAILS_UNREAD to 0, so all e-mails will be set to "read" once they are downloaded.
Running YahooPops For the First Time
1. If you've set up your .cshrc to automatically run YahooPops when you login, this is the only time you'll have to worry about starting the program up. Simply execute the command:
- source ~/.cshrc
Configuring Apple's Mail Client to Use YahooPops
1. Start up Apple's Mail Client
2. Navigate to Mail->Preferences
3. Click "Add Account"
4. Fill in the following information:
- Account Type: POP
Description: My Yahoo Mail (or something more creative if you wish)
E-mail Address: [email protected]
Full Name: Your Name
Incoming Mail Server: localhost
User Name: your_login_name
Password: only you know this!
Outgoing Mail Server:
- a. Click on "Options"
b. Type your ISP's SMTP server name into "Outgoing Mail Server" and press OK. For example, my server is smtp.west.cox.net. (I haven't figured out how to set up YahooPops to run SMTP... anyone?)
5. Click OK.
6. Click the "Get Mail" button, and e-mail should start downloading if I've explained all this correctly =)
7. Send a couple test messages to make sure SMTP is working correctly.
Hopefully this covers everything. It can be a bit tricky. Please let me know if I'm missing anything, or if any of these steps simply don't work, and I'll try to answer any questions that spring up ('cause obviously the developers of this program don't spend too much time with the OSX version.)
Good Luck!!!
-naseem
