Yandex Mail IMAP and SMTP Settings for Email Clients

Yandex Mail supports IMAP, POP3, and SMTP, but the protocol is switched off for every account until you turn it on yourself. That single step is the reason most "wrong password" errors in Thunderbird, Outlook, or a phone's mail app are not actually password problems.

This post covers the server settings only — hostnames, ports, and encryption — plus the account toggle and folder-naming quirks that trip up clients coming from Gmail or Outlook. If you're stuck on a login that gets rejected even with IMAP enabled, the credential side (app passwords, two-factor auth) has its own post: yandex-mail-app-password.

Yandex Mail IMAP, POP3, and SMTP settings#

These are the values to enter in any desktop or mobile client's manual account setup. Use your full Yandex email address as the username in every field — not just the part before the @.

Before you start: enable IMAP or POP3 in Yandex Mail#

Yandex ships IMAP and POP3 access turned off by default, for every account, regardless of plan. A client configured with the correct server, port, and encryption will still fail to log in until this is switched on from inside webmail.

To enable it: sign in at mail.yandex.com, open Settings, go to "All settings," then "Email clients." Turn on "From other mail clients via POP3" and/or "From other mail clients via IMAP," then save. Both can be on at once — enabling one doesn't disable the other.

Two-factor authentication changes the password you enter#

If two-factor authentication is on for the Yandex account, the account password will not work in a mail client — Yandex rejects it outright. You need an app password generated from the account's security settings instead, one per client. That process, plus what to do if the password field keeps getting rejected, is covered in yandex-mail-app-password.

Steps to add Yandex Mail to a desktop or mobile client#

1. 1

   Enable IMAP or POP3 in Yandex webmail

   Settings → All settings → Email clients → turn on the protocol you plan to use, then save. Skip this and every later step fails at login.

2. 2

   Choose "manual setup" or "other" in your mail client

   Most clients offer to auto-detect settings for known domains; Yandex isn't always in that list, so pick manual/advanced setup if the first attempt fails.

3. 3

   Enter the incoming server

   imap.yandex.com, port 993, SSL/TLS. Username is your full address ([email protected] or a custom domain hosted on Yandex).

4. 4

   Enter the outgoing server

   smtp.yandex.com, port 465 with SSL/TLS, or port 587 with STARTTLS if 465 is blocked on your network. Authentication is required — leave it enabled.

5. 5

   Enter the password

   Your normal account password if 2FA is off. If 2FA is on, generate and paste an app password instead — see yandex-mail-app-password.

6. 6

   Send a test message and check folder mapping

   Confirm Sent, Trash, and Drafts land in the right client-side folders. If they don't, check the account's interface language (see the callout above).

Platform differences: Thunderbird, Outlook, Apple Mail, and generic IMAP#

The server settings above are identical across every client. What differs is auto-discovery, how each client labels the setup screens, and how forgiving each one is about folder-name mismatches.

What to do when Yandex rejects the login#

A rejected login almost always traces to one of four causes, and they're worth checking in this order because each one is faster to rule out than the last.

• IMAP/POP3 is still off — recheck Settings → All settings → Email clients and confirm you saved the change.
• Two-factor authentication is on and you entered the account password instead of an app password.
• Yandex flagged the login as suspicious (new device, new country, or a VPN) and is holding it for verification — check for a security prompt in the Yandex mobile app or a verification email.
• A typo in the server address or port — imap.yandex.com and smtp.yandex.com are correct; a leftover imap.yandex.ru or the wrong port from an old guide will fail silently in some clients.

A faster way than reconfiguring every client#

The steps above have to be repeated per device and per client — get a new laptop or add a tablet, and you're back in the Email clients settings screen. AI Emaily connects to Yandex Mail over the same IMAP protocol, once, and then handles triage, drafting, and search across that account and any others you add, without a second manual setup per device.

Connect Yandex Mail the same way described in this post — imap.yandex.com and smtp.yandex.com, after enabling client access in Yandex settings — and AI Emaily takes it from there. We build AI Emaily; see how the connection works in our IMAP setup docs, or start a 7-day free trial on the Pro plan (card required, $0 if you cancel before day 7) to try it against your own inbox.