Yahoo groups data update

[shadowscast]

Regarding getting the data from Yahoo groups:

I finally got the data which I had requested from Yahoo directly by following their not-very-clear "request your data" instructions (involving going through the "privacy dashboard"). (I requested the data on 2019-10-16 and I got it on 2019-10-26.)

It arrived as a zip file, which, when unzipped, had a folder for each of the groups I was a member of (not just the one I moderated).

Each of the group folders had three folders in it: files, links, and messages (also zipped, initially).

Unzipping the "files" folder yielded all of the files that had been in the group's files section, with subfolders intact. So that's pretty handy, I guess.

Unzipping the "links" folder yielded files which Windows tells me are of the type "internet shortcut", but which I cannot figure out how to open. Anyway, each one is about 200 bytes.

Unzipping the "messages" folder yielded one file with a name like: 2215412.mbox.00001
(Update: Whoops, when I wrote that I had only looked at the smaller group. For the larger groups, there are multiple mbox files, with the suffixes 00001, 00002, etc. Each one had a maximum file size of about 10,244 KB—so I guess the bigger message archives got broken into chunks, which makes sense.)

At first I wasn't sure what that was, but after some googling I figured out that it was a saved-emails file format.

I downloaded Thunderbird, an email client, and followed the instructions found on this page:
https://www.wintips.org/how-to-open-mbox-files-in-thunderbird/

After doing that, I was able to view all of the group's email messages in Thunderbird.

Update: After writing this post, I saw that there's now a Yahoo Groups Fandom Rescue Project Tumbler, which has a post with essentially the same information I just discovered for myself: Yahoo Groups Deletion: Requesting Your Groups

But they mention that not all files from the "files" section of the groups seem to be necessarily always included, so that's a warning.

And morgandawn has the same info in a Dreamwidth post: Yahoo Groups Deletion: Requesting Your Groups

Update 2: I think I've figured out what's up with the missing photos. See this comment below.

Comments

Vid show Playlists

[(Anonymous)]

PGOffline stores all data (yours and the files) on your computer. But if you ever export the PGOffline database (this is the file with the pg4 extension), change your password. The files and messages and photos that you might share are fine ...but the database that PGOffline stores only on your computer contains your password. So change your password if you ever decide to hand over the database. In fact, I am changing my password at thee end of the Yahoo Group project -- because Yahoo's password security is for crap.

Re: Vid show Playlists

[shadowscast]

Thanks, that's good to know!