Send email via Yahoo with PowerShell

Quick reference for sending email via a Yahoo! mail account and their SMTP servers from within a PowerShell script.

You’ll need the Yahoo SMTP server details, which require you to use a specific port (587 – I couldn’t get 465 to work) and an encrypted connection.

I also set up a Yahoo “app password” for PowerShell, which means I don’t have to use my regular password in plain text in a script, which is a good thing. To do this click the settings cog from within Yahoo Mail, go to Account info, then when that opens go to Account Security. From there you’ll find Manage app passwords and can add a new one called (e.g.) PowerShell. Copy and paste the password generated into the PowerShell script. Note that the generated password is shown in four blocks of four letters with spaces in between but when you paste it it’ll come out with no spaces – and this is correct – you do not need the spaces displayed on the Yahoo web page.

Here’s the sample script:

$Username = "something@yahoo.co.uk"
$Password = "abcdefghijklmnop"

$SecurePassword = $Password | ConvertTo-SecureString -AsPlainText -Force
$Credentials = New-Object System.Management.Automation.PSCredential -ArgumentList $Username, $SecurePassword

$RcptTo = "somebody@mailserver.com"
$Subject = "Yahoo Test"
$Body = "This is a test message"
Send-MailMessage -From $Username -To $RcptTo -Subject $Subject -Body $Body -SmtpServer smtp.mail.yahoo.com -Port 587 -UseSsl -Credential $Credentials

And here’s the same thing as a function:

function Send-YahooMail ($Username, $Password, $RcptTo, $Subject, $Body){
    $SecurePassword = $Password | ConvertTo-SecureString -AsPlainText -Force
    $Credentials = New-Object System.Management.Automation.PSCredential -ArgumentList $Username, $SecurePassword
    Send-MailMessage -From $Username -To $RcptTo -Subject $Subject -Body $Body -SmtpServer smtp.mail.yahoo.com -Port 587 -UseSsl -Credential $Credentials
}

If you don’t want any kind of password in plain text in a script then you need to also look at this post of mine too.