Yahoo Groups, the almost 2-decade old and one of the earliest group interaction platforms is set to become defunct in December 2020. Yahoo has announced that it will shut down its social media service Yahoo Groups starting December 15.
Yahoo Groups team in an email to its users wrote that the service has seen a steady decline in usage over the last several years, “Over that same period, we’ve witnessed unprecedented levels of engagement across our properties as customers seek out premium, trustworthy content.
To that end, we must sometimes make difficult decisions regarding products that no longer fit our long-term strategy as we hone our focus on other areas of the business.”
The option to create new groups on Yahoo Groups has already been disabled from October 12. All services of Yahoo Groups including sending and receiving emails will be inaccessible from December 15. Yahoo in one of its FAQ notes that only Yahoo Groups will be decommissioned (groups.yahoo.com) and emails sent from Yahoo Groups. Yahoo Mail will continue to function normally.
It further notes that If a user tries to send an email after shutdown, the message will not be delivered and they will receive a failure notification.
However, previously sent and received emails will not be deleted, and will remain in the user’s email.
Yahoo suggests users can join sites like Facebook Groups, Google Groups, and Groups.io, which offers a paid function to export members from Yahoo groups. It further notes only admins of Yahoo group will be able to download a full list of group members’ email addresses.
