It's probably been a long time since you last used Yahoo Groups, which is part of the reason Yahoo has decided to shut the service down later this year.
If your memory of Yahoo Groups is a little fuzzy, it offers like-minded users the opportunity to gather and discuss particular topics, much like Tumblr or Reddit. Members of a Group can share files, have conversations, conduct polls and send messages to one another in a friendly, communal way. At least, that was the idea.
[Editor's Note: this article has been updated to display the correct start date for when Yahoo Groups will stop supporting new content. We have also included a statement directly from Yahoo. We apologize for the error.]
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"We are tailoring Groups' features to match the preferences of our Groups members," a Yahoo representative tells us. "Most of our members connect and share content primarily over email, so we believe this change will streamline and improve the Groups experience. Yahoo Groups will continue to provide a way for people to connect with their communities around shared interests, and we will continue to listen to feedback to ensure we keep our users happy."
Additionally, it seems possible to us that the service has been overwhelmed by competition from more successful platforms. As a result, the company plans to start shutting it down on October 28, when users will no longer be able to upload new content.
The process will finish on December 14, when everything will be erased permanently from Yahoo's servers. Files, polls, calendars, conversations, folders calendars – not a trace will remain.
Download your data
That window gives you a few months to download your data before it's gone for good, and it's well worth doing; you might not recall exactly what you've shared on Yahoo Groups over the years, but there may be the odd photo or file that you'll look back on fondly, or posts that you'll want to hang onto.
To grab your content, head over to your Yahoo Group's page and you should see a link to download everything directly. Alternatively, you can log into your Yahoo account on Verizon Media's Privacy Dashboard and request the data.
There might be quite a lot to package up, depending on how active your Yahoo Groups were, so you'll receive an email once it's all archived and ready to download.
Via The Verge
