Yahoo! Mail Blog, UK and Ireland

So, were you successful in getting the email name that you’ve always wanted? That’s great news!! Now, are you trying to decide how to let everyone know that you’ve got a terrific new email address? And maybe you’re wondering if you can move all your mail and contacts over to that new ymail or rocketmail account. Well have I got a tool for!!!

How can I let people know that I have a new email address?
Whether you are coming from hotmail (yuck), gmail (blech) or even another yahoo (hooray!) email account, we’ve got tool that automatically moves everything from your old email address to your new ymail, rocketmail and/or yahoo.co.uk email address. It couldn’t be easier.

A little while back, my colleagues and I created a video that shows just how easy it is. I’ve included it on this post. But before you hit the play button, I just want to point out a couple of small differences from when we made the video (and believe me they are small).
1. You now have a choice to move everything to @ymail.com and @rocketmail.com
2. You can no longer move calendar items.
3. It can take up to 24 hours to move everything over (so keep checking)

Just take a look at this video (or click here for a full screen version)…

See how easy that was? Check it out for yourself

If you that can’t place where you know the music from… It’s “Maybe Tomorrow” by Terry Bush the theme song from the TV series “The Littlest Hobo”

Happy Switching!
Andrew - Yahoo! Mai Team

We all get some unwelcome emails from time to time. You probably do what I do and just press delete, but sometimes you need a bit more muscle on your side to deal with them.

That’s where the Address Blocker comes in handy. It stops emails from addresses you don’t want to hear from. Just what you need? Then here’s how to do it.

All-new Yahoo! Mail users:
Click Options, then on the list on the left click Spam. Right in the middle of the page you’ll find a space in the “Blocked Addresses” section. All you’ve got to do is put any email addresses you don’t want to get mail from in here, then click Add. There you go. Told you it was easy. Here’s what it should look like:

Classic version of Yahoo! Mail users:
Click Options, then find the link for “Block Addresses“. Click the link for “Block Addresses” and enter any email addresses or domains you want to block. Then click Add Block. Just as easy for the classic mail users as the all-new mail users. Here’s what it looks like:

Happy emailing!
Andrew - Yahoo! Mail Team

Today, I thought I’d share a personal experience on how something that’s so second nature to me, is perceived so differently through the eyes of someone else. To encourage you to read this post, I’ve put a tip at the end.

Here’s the scenario: I was setting up a new Yahoo! Mail account for my mum the other day. I KNOW!! She doesn’t already use Yahoo! Mail?!?! Well the answer is no. In fact, she doesn’t really use the Internet at all, until now. My dad got her a new laptop for Christmas and she’s just getting around to using it now.

At the moment, she’s just going to use it for email, and maybe some Web surfing. She wants to be in touch with her book-group and another group she meets up with. So while setting up the account, it got me to thinking what’s the easiest way for my mum to logon to her new email account? And as I was saying, “Click this picture, also known as an icon (BTW – I like Vista for the option to have those huge icons), then go to bookmarks, then click on this one that’s called Yahoo Mail, and then login.” I was thinking there’s got to be easier way, and then I was thinking how do other people logon to their mail?

So I asked around the team, and what I’ve found a large percentage of users do… They open an Internet browser, and then search for Yahoo Mail, and then click the Yahoo Mail search result. I’m going to assume that it’s mostly Internet explorer for the browser and mostly some other search engine I’m not going to name ;). But then that’s probably what my mum would do too, whereas I would never think to do that. But since my mum doesn’t know what a URL is or what http:// stands for, it makes more sense to me now. I’ve been immersed in this stuff for so long now, what seems second nature to me is completely foreign to someone like my mum.

So the next time the next you’re trying to explain something to someone, think about whether or not my Mum would understand it.

So here’s the tip, which is my solution to the “easier way” from above and how my mum gets to her mail each day. I put a shortcut on her desktop that goes directly to Yahoo! Mail. Here’s one way that you can do it for your mum (although I know that there’s a number of ways to do it):

- All you need to do is click and drag this link – Login to Yahoo Mail – onto your mum’s desktop.
- Make sure her desktop is clutter free so that it’s easy to see the shortcut, and if you have Window’s Vista you can turn on those really huge icons, which my mum really likes.
- The shortcut icon you get may look like one of the two shortcuts above. I thought that it has to do with which browser you have set to be the default browser, but my tests have proved inconclusive.

Now this tip is not meant for my mum, it’s meant for people like me who want to help their friends and family get the most out of their Internet experience. But I promise, mum, I’ll get working on some tips just for you!!

Happy emailing!!
Andrew – Yahoo! Mail Team

Quite often in this blog, I like to offer some tips and suggestions about how to get the most out of mail. So for today’s tip, I’m offering an alternative to checking your mail from an internet browser, plus a whole host of other fun and useful applications.

I wanted to introduce you to the Yahoo! Widget Engine (I’ve been using it since it was called Konfabulator). For those of you who don’t know what a widget is, it’s a small little program on your computer to complete a specified task. There’s an introductory video that explains it better than I can. Of course, I’m sure that you Mac (and now Windows Visa) users know what widgets are already.

After you download and install the widget engine, within the suite of incredibly useful widgets that comes with the application is the Yahoo! Mail Checker. With that widget you can have a notification of when you receive your Yahoo! Mail and you don’t even have to open a browser to find it.

Unfortunately, the Yahoo! Mail Checker is on the second page of the dock. So one really useful suggestion I have is to right click on the widgets that you don’t think you’ll need and delete them from the dock. Keep doing that until the Yahoo! Mail Checker is on the first page of the widget dock (for example, I don’t need the CPU monitor). If anyone on the widget team is reading this, maybe you can let us reorder the default order of the widgets that get installed.

Now that you have the Widget engine installed, I hope you have fun playing around and finding out all the useful widgets that are out there. My all-time personal favorite is widescapeWeather for its simplicity and functionality (exactly what a widget is supposed to be).

Happy emailing!!
Andrew - Yahoo! Mail Team

Are you like I was? Always sneaking back to your Mailbox to check if you’d got any messages. Well, if you’ve got a Yahoo! Toolbar, all that hassle can be a distant memory.

Mail Alerts
Looking at the feedback that you send us, it seems that you’re on the lookout for a way to be alerted when you get new mail in your inbox. So for this tip, I’m suggesting the Yahoo! Toolbar if you’re looking for a way to get notification for the arrival of new messages.

The Y! Toolbar has got lots of cool features, like blocking pop ups and a box to search the web from. But, for me, the best thing is the Mail button. Because, wherever you are on the web, the minute you get mail a little alert will pop up on the Toolbar to let you know. From there, it’s one click to your inbox.

Want the Yahoo! Toolbar? It’s free, find out more here. There’s a version for IE and Firefox.

If you’ve already got it you can add the Mail button (if it’s not there already). All it takes is one click here.

One Toolbar is plenty
By the way, one toolbar is enough – if you’ve got a bunch of the things, which you don’t use, just get rid of them. Ther’s a couple of ways to do that (on Windows at least), navigate to the control panel (from the Start Menu), enter Control Panel, open Add/Remove Programs and REMOVE the toolbars you don’t want.

Alternatively, you can click View, then click Toolbars and un-check the ones you don’t want to see. Amazingly it works the same for Firefox and IE. Good riddance.

Happy Emailing!
Andrew - Yahoo Mail Team

The Classic version of Yahoo! Mail is great. But I think the all-new Yahoo! Mail is even better. What’s not to love: Chat with your friends directly in Mail, drag and drop, improved search, new colors and that’s just to name a few.

Want to switch to the all-new mail to try out some of these great features? Here’s how:

Take a look at the image above. Just click the link “Try the new Yahoo! Mail”. With just one click you are taken directly to the new version of Yahoo! Mail.

Have a play around, and if you’re not convinced it fantastic, you can always switch back. The choice is yours. Here’s how to switch back.

Happy emailing,
Andrew - Yahoo! Mail Team

NOTE: Thanks to a comment from Lee Fuller, I’ve amended this post to account for the different versions of Yahoo Mail…

There’s lots of reasons to get a second email address. You’ve got a special project going that needs a special address. You want all those emails about online purchases going to one place. You want to keep one for friends and family and one for everyone else. Or, you could be like me and just like the extra flexibility it gives you.

For the all-new Yahoo! Mail:
It’s a piece of cake to get set up. Just click Options, then select Mail Options. Go to the list on the left then click Accounts. You’ll find the bottom half of the page is cunningly called “Extra Mail Address”. Just click Get Started and follow the instructions. Couldn’t be simpler.

For the classic version of Yahoo! Mail:
It’s still a piece of cake to get set up. Just click Options, then select Mail (if it’s not already selected). Go to the list on the right then click Mail Addresses. You’ll be able to add, edit and delete the extra addresses from there. Just like above, it couldn’t be simpler.

Happy emailing!
Andrew - Yahoo! Mail Team

Ever get the feeling that someone’s taken your email the wrong way? I have. That’s why emoticons are such handy little things to drop into an email. Trying to be funny? Then better flag it up with a smiley face. Trying to be serious? Then let everyone know you mean business. It’s easy to do, takes seconds and whether you’re having a laugh or having a cry, it can really help you get your message across.

Dropping an emoticon into your email is easy. Just select them from the emoticon menu or type them in using your keyboard shortcuts. You’ll find how to do that here.