How to get emails from a deactivated account

• You can recover a Yahoo email account that you've deactivated — but you'll have to do it quickly.
• Once you deactivate your Yahoo Mail account, you'll have 30 days to recover it, after which it'll be deleted permanently.
• You can recover your Yahoo Mail account simply by signing back into your account.
• Visit Business Insider's Tech Reference library for more stories.

Yahoo Mail is one of the most popular email services around, and has been for years. Like most email services, Yahoo also lets you deactivate your account if you don't want it anymore.

But we all make mistakes. And it's not uncommon to deactivate an account, only to realize that you actually need it back.

Luckily, Yahoo Mail will let you recover any account that you deactivate. However, you'll need to do it within 30 days of sending the deactivation request. Otherwise, the account will disappear forever.

If you're still in that grace period, here's how to recover your account. You can do this using any browser on your Mac or PC.

Check out the products mentioned in this article:

Apple Macbook Pro (From $1,299.00 at Apple)

Acer Chromebook 15 (From $179.99 at Walmart)

How to recover your Yahoo Mail account

1. Head to Yahoo Mail and try to sign into your account using the same email, username, or phone number you've used in the past for your account.

2. You'll be asked to verify your identity with a code sent to the phone number you have on file. If you don't have access to this phone, you can also click "Try another way to sign in," which will ask you to call Yahoo customer support.

3. Once you verify the code, you'll be asked to choose a new password for your account. If you don't want to choose a new password, click "I'll secure my account later" at the bottom of the screen.

4. You'll then be shown all your current recovery options, and you'll be asked to add more if you're missing any. Click "Remind me later" if you don't want to add more options.

5. Once this is done, your account will be reactivated, and you'll be brought back to the Yahoo homepage. Open up Yahoo Mail, and you'll find all your email back in place.

Related coverage from Tech Reference:

• How to forward email from a Yahoo Mail account to Gmail or other email services

• How to add Yahoo Mail to your iPhone in 2 ways and coordinate all of your email in one place

• How to sign out of your Yahoo Mail account on desktop or mobile, and keep your account secure

• How to change your Yahoo account password or reset it if you've forgotten it

• How to add contacts to your Yahoo Mail account manually in 2 ways

Have you ever wondered if you could access your old email accounts? You might want to look for some old files, or maybe need information about an old contact. Whatever the reason, there is good and bad news when it comes to accessing old email accounts.

The best thing that you can do is to use the provider to find the old email account or old messages. All of the major providers, including Outlook, Gmail, Yahoo, and AOL, have recovery tools available. If the email address is from a lesser player in the email game, again, you might be out of luck.

First, Know the Protocol

Frankly, the next 3 paragraphs might be confusing. If they don’t make sense to you jump to Do You Remember the Service or Email Address?

The first thing you have to do is know the protocol your provider uses. There are two different protocols to consider when trying to access old messages: POP3 or IMAP.

POP3 protocols essentially download messages from a server to a device. IMAP just syncs your messages between your device and the server. Most email services default to an IMAP protocol, but it’s very possible that an older email account would have been set up to use POP3. If this is the case, and the provider deletes the messages off the servers when downloaded via POP3, this is not good news…those messages are gone. Even if you eventually get access to these accounts, if you have downloaded the messages to a computer or smartphone, they are gone from the server.

There is better news if you used IMAP…though, again, this is assuming nothing has been deleted. Some providers will delete accounts that are inactive for a certain amount of time. If the account is deleted, those messages are gone. Check the account deletion policy of the email provider to see if your account might still be active, and ultimately, accessible.

Do You Remember the Service or Email Address?

If you remember the email address and not the password, try the password reset link and if, and only if, you set up a backup email for recovery, then you’re on Golden Pond.

Now, what happens if you can’t remember what service you used or even the email address you used? There is still hope.

First, search for your name in the email account you use now. You might have sent something to yourself from an old account. Another option is this: if you remember the old provider, you can also search for that. You also might want to search your computer to see if there are old documents with your old email in there. You also might have set up a recovery email address or phone number that you can use to access the account.

What happens to a deactivated email account?

Can you forward emails from a deactivated account?

How can I access my deactivated Gmail account?

How do I access a deactivated Outlook account?