Yahoo switches email forwarding back on after it was 'temporarily disabled'

If you attempted to set up automatic email forwarding in Yahoo Mail over the past few days, you may have run into a problem: you couldn't.

That's because Yahoo disabled the feature, leaving users unable to receive their email if they were moving to a different provider. It appeared to only impact users who were setting forwarding up for the first time, but given Yahoo's recent disclosure of a massive security breach and reports of government email scanning, the timing was a bit ... odd. 

Today, however, Yahoo says it's turning new automatic email forwarding back on after it "temporarily disabled" the function. 

"Last week, we temporarily disabled the ability to add new automatic forwarding in Yahoo Mail," writes Michael Albers, VP of Product Management at Yahoo Mail, in a blog post. "As of today, auto-forward is enabled again for all Mail users. We apologize for the interruption."

Albers explains that "the pause" came in the midst of the firm implementing upgrades to Yahoo Mail. 

Though it offers mail forwarding, Yahoo recommends folks connect their Yahoo inbox to whichever email client or provider they prefer directly. The company also supports multiple mailbox support, if you like to have more than one email active at once. 

It feels a bit like Yahoo knows it messed up on this one, but at least it's reactivating a feature users will probably take full advantage of. 

Michelle Fitzsimmons

Michelle was previously a news editor at TechRadar, leading consumer tech news and reviews. Michelle is now a Content Strategist at Facebook.  A versatile, highly effective content writer and skilled editor with a keen eye for detail, Michelle is a collaborative problem solver and covered everything from smartwatches and microprocessors to VR and self-driving cars.