Announcing the Shut Down of Yahoo Groups

[DocQuantum]

Just got this in my inbox from Yahoo:

Dear Yahoo Group Moderators and Members,

We launched Yahoo Groups 20 years ago to connect people around their shared interests. We helped our users navigate new towns, keep in touch with college friends, learn new skills, and most importantly, build connections they may have lost or never had in the first place. While we could not have been more proud of what we accomplished together, we are reaching out today with heavy hearts to let you know that we have decided to shut down Yahoo Groups on December 15, 2020.

Yahoo Groups has seen a steady decline in usage over the last several years. Over that same period we’ve witnessed unprecedented levels of engagement across our properties as customers seek out premium, trustworthy content. To that end, we must sometimes make difficult decisions regarding products that no longer fit our long-term strategy as we hone our focus on other areas of the business.

Beginning December 15, 2020 the Yahoo Groups website will shut down and members will no longer be able to send or receive emails from Yahoo Groups. We’ve compiled a comprehensive FAQ here that includes alternative providers and information on how this will impact your group content.

Thank you for helping us build one of the earliest digital communities — we’re proud and honored to have forged countless connections over the last 20 years and played a small part in helping build your communities.

Sincerely,
The Yahoo Groups team

[DocQuantum]

This is frustrating, because there are a lot of subscribers to our groups who haven't followed us over to this message board. Sure, the majority of them are lurkers, and many may have left Yahoo Groups long ago, but with these groups gone that's several big links that sever us from the past. Yes, the Yahoo Groups downloads from last year allowed you to get Member Lists, but most emails are hidden because of privacy settings, so there's no way for us to contact most people, even if their emails are still active.

[dans]

Can't admins of Yahoo Groups send out one last group email with our currently link? I know we made announcements like that on Yahoo Groups in the past... but my feeling is that anyone who hasn't already followed us here probably won't. But it is worth trying again.

[starskyhutch76]

Have all files and galleries been saved? There's a lot of off-topic junk in the galleries, but a lot of character and cover files, too.

[DocQuantum]

Yeah, I’ve got all I could save

[dans]

I've got as much as they would provide for the forums I was an admin in (Earth S and Earth 2) and some files from all the other forums as well, plus several unrelated forums. But it is difficult to read them in the format Yahoo provided (not impossible) and I don't see user email information.

[DocQuantum]

I had to manually export all users for each group.