Requirements
You need to have the below installed to be able to use FetchYahoo effectively.

    * A mail client that can read from a mail spool or an mbox-formatted file (almost all Unix mail clients, Netscape Mail for Windows)
    * A working installation of Perl (comes with almost all Unix installations, needs to be installed for Windows - try ActivePerl)
    * Several Perl modules are required. The following module-collections contain the required modules: libwww-perl, html-parser, MIME-tools, libnet (for mail forwarding), Crypt-SSLeay (for https). Some users report additionally requiring the following: URI, MailTools, IO-stringy, MIME-Base64. There are several methods for getting these :
          o If you have an RPM-based distribution, search at RPMfind.net for perl-MIME-tools, perl-html-parser, perl-libwww-perl, perl-libnet (for mail forwarding) and perl-Crypt-SSLeay (for https) and get the required RPMs for your distribution
          o For deb-based systems (properly configured), you can just do "apt-get -u install libnet libhtml-parser-perl libmime-perl libwww-perl libcrypt-ssleay-perl"
          o For windows, you can use the Perl Package Manager which comes with ActivePerl
          o If you have the CPAN perl module installed and working you can run "perl -MCPAN -e shell" and then install each of the following separately: HTML::Entities, LWP::UserAgent, MIME::Entity, Net:SMTP (for mail forwarding - use the libnet version), Crypt::SSLeay (for https)
          o Go to the CPAN repository. Go to the first search choice (Perl core and CPAN modules). Search for MIME-tools, libwww-perl, html-parser, libnet (for mail forwarding) and Net_SSLeay (for https). Follow the appropriate installation instructions.

Usage notes

    * Download fetchyahoo.pl
    * Chmod a+rx fetchyahoo.pl
    * Edit fetchyahoo.pl or the configuration file
          o put in your Yahoo! username and password and path to your mail spool/mbox file (usually /var/spool/mail/username )
            OR copy fetchyahoorc to /etc/fetchyahoorc or ~/.fetchyahoorc and edit that
          o fill in your smtp mail server, forwarding-to address and forwarding-from address if you want messages to be forwarded
          o fill in your web proxy host and port if you are using one (and the proxy username and password if necesssary)
    o set use-https to 1 if you want to login securely. This may require the Crypt::SSLeay Perl module.
    * Run fetchyahoo.pl
          o --newonly to download new msgs only
          o --nodelete to not delete messages after downloading
          o --configfile=/path/to/configfile to specify an alternate configuration file
          o --username=yahoousername to specify a Yahoo! username
          o --password=yahoopassowrd to specify a Yahoo! password
          o --spoolfile=/path/to/spoolfile to specify the file to send messages to
          o --quiet to suppress regular (non-error) messages
          o --noerrors to suppress error messages
          o --nodownload to only delete messages, do not download them
          o --inlinehtml to transmit HTML messages inline
          o --emptytrashbefore to empty trash before downloading messages
          o --emptytrashafter to empty trash after downloading messages
          o --logout to log out of Yahoo! when done
          o --repeatinterval=N to check for mail every N minutes
          o --nofromline to leave out the leading From_ line
          o --leaveunread to leave messages unread on the server
          o --getexternal to retrieve messages from external mailboxes as well
    * Use your mail client to get mail from your spool or mbox file
    * e-mail author with bugs and feature requests


NB: Options specified on the commandline take precedence over options specified in the configuration file, which in turn take precedence over options hardcoded within the fetchyahoo program file. Note the useHTTPS option to use SSL to connect securely !
Procmail instructions

    * use "/path/to/procmail" as your mail spool name
* set spoolMode to "pipe"

Windows Instructions
This is reported to work fine under Windows (thanks to Shiraz Kanga for pointing this out). It works with the Netscape mail client which uses the mbox format (output by FetchYahoo) for its local folders. If you know of any other Windows mail clients which will work, please tell me.

    * Download Perl for Windows (e.g. ActivePerl)
    * Edit fetchyahoo.pl or the configuration file as shown above
    * Use Netscape Mail to get your mail from the mailbox you specified
    * e-mail author with bugs and feature requests

If you do not use Netscape Mail, you can try the following methods (these are untested):

    * For Eudora specify a new or existing Eudora mailbox as the spool file.
* For Outlook or Outlook Express, specify a temporary (existent but empty) file as the spool file, and then after fetchyahoo has completed, choose File -> Import -> Messages from Outlook (or Outlook Express) and choose the temporary file you specified. This has been tested successfully.