Microsoft today announced Outlook.com users can now import email from IMAP-enabled email providers, including Yahoo Mail. The addition is part of the service’s import wizard, which lets you keep your old email addresses, but manage them all from Outlook.com.

To import your Yahoo Mail into Outlook.com, navigate to Options and then click “Import email accounts.” Microsoft has added a specific option for Yahoo, so select it, enter your Yahoo email address, your password, and then click Import.

Doing this will set up your Yahoo email address as a “send from” account, meaning you can use Outlook.com to send emails from your Yahoo address. You can also connect your Yahoo account to your Microsoft account so your Yahoo contacts appear in Outlook.com.

Importing from other IMAP-enabled email providers works the same way, except after you navigate to Options and click “Import email accounts,” you have to select “Other email provider.” Unfortunately, Microsoft won’t say which IMAP-enabled email providers are supported, aside from the “most popular” ones.

The good news is that all this importing happens in the background, meaning you can continue using Outlook.com or even sign out during the process. Importing your mail will not affect your old account: you can keep using it as before.

Once the import is complete, you’ll get an email letting you know. Microsoft wouldn’t give an import time estimate, as it will naturally vary depending on how many emails you’re moving over.

Microsoft first added the import tool to Outlook.com with support for Gmail back in December 2013. With Yahoo Mail on board now, the company finally has support for its two biggest competitors. Whether users will actually import their email, however, is another story.

See also – Microsoft launches Skype for Outlook.com worldwide, adds Safari for Mac support and HD video calling for PCs and Microsoft apologizes for three-day Outlook.com outage, says caching issue was to blame

Top Image Credit: Robert Scoble

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