Hello all,

Yahoo Groups will be terminating its services on Dec. 14, 2019. As many of you know, Yahoo Groups provided a major discussion forum for a variety of railroad related topics. Some groups have 20 years of posts and have recollections and attached files from now-departed employees and historians.

Here are a few options for preserving Yahoo Groups.

Migrate to Groups.io – Owners of Yahoo Groups can choose to migrate to Groups.io, and instructions are available here: https://groups.io/static/transfer

Download group material using PG Offline software - IF you are a member, but not an owner of a group, there is a program called PG Offline that will download all material in a Yahoo Group, including posts, files, and photos.

The developer’s website may be accessed at: http://www.personalgroupware.com/pgoffline-index.htm

There is an instructional video at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4PIumS33e0

I have been using the free version of the software, and have found it to be effective in its purpose. I also plan to purchase the paid version shortly. However, it is slow, even over a fast broadband connection. If you are downloading a large group, you will want to start it and let it run for a few hours.

I’m not aware of institutional efforts to preserve Yahoo Groups. I have tried (to no avail) to get a response from Archive.org as to what they are doing to preserve the groups on the Wayback Machine.

I am afraid it will be unlikely that 'dog in the manger' Verizon/Oath is going to release any of the Yahoo Groups files, photos, or other data to be archived. Their current 'excuse' for dumping all the content (and, apparently, the archive of saved e-mail messages as well) is "privacy concerns".

There is at least one program/script for processing archived files to recover their information in 'usable' form on the Group Managers Forum. I expect more will follow.

Note that a likely 'track' for groups to follow may be to establish a 'free' group on, say, groups.io and then, after the "rush" is over in mid-December, load selected files, photos or other resources to that group as needed. There is a very limited amount of storage in a 'free' groups.io group, and the cost to set up a 'premium' group has apparently doubled (from $110 to $220) since Yahoo Groups announced their reboot to an e-mail reflector circa 1988.

The writing has been on the wall for years concerning Yahoo groups - no updates and little if any maintenance. Functionality was getting hit or miss. I can understand their lack of interest and letting it die a slow death. It generates no income.

If Groups.io can stay profitable, it’ll be a good place for collaborative groups. The huge B&O Yahoo group recently moved to Groups.io and, so far, seems to run smoothly.

Yahoo can go ahead and die. I watched them literally lock out all the moderator accounts on groups before for no reason, leaving the group unmanageable, literally.

Yahoo! has provided a way for YahooGroups members to download Group Files, Photos and Message Archives. Go to https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/getmydata

You'll need your Yahoo ID and password, and will have to provide an E-mail address so you can be notified when your data is ready for download.

Here is a link to a Washington Post article on efforts to preserve Yahoo Groups and Verizon's efforts to thwart them:

http://web.archive.org/web/20191211212446/https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/12/11/these-crusaders-want-preserve-human-culture-online-their-latest-target-yahoo-groups/


Note - the tool that Yahoo has made available to download data from Yahoo Groups will only capture information that you contributed. It won't capture, let's say, Porta's contributions to the Steam Tech YahooGroup.


I have been using http://www.personalgroupware.com/pgoffline-index.htm and it continues to work effectively for its stated purpose.