Many of you may have been wondering if this blog was still alive. I can’t say I blame you, if you did, given that the last post was months ago, but have no fear this IS a blog and I’m going to re-establish it as THE place to go for all things Yahoo! Mail.
But first I need to clarify a little. In an effort to totally dazzle you with misdirection, we thought it would be fun to try and replace the awesome work done, over the last year, by Ryan Kennedy with another Ryan…me. My name is Ryan Knight, and I’m the new Community Manager for Mail. That’s right, Yahoo! realized that the original Ryan had enough to do keeping up on his engineering responsibilities, and decided it was time to bring in another Ryan who could spend more time rustling up news for you. Don’t worry, Mr. Kennedy is still a Yahoo, and sends his best.
What that means to you is that this blog will be active again, and will be posted to on a regular basis. It will also cover all forms of mail, so even if you aren’t using Yahoo! Mail Beta, there will be stuff here for you too. Whether you are looking for news on feature changes, bug fixes, interviews with Yahoos working on Mail, tips from power users, tutorials, a glimpse behind the walls here at Yahoo!, or what have you, this is where you can go to find it.
I’m also excited to let you all know that there are some feature changes for the blog. You can find most of them in the sidebar to the —>. As you may have noticed we’ve added Categories, a Blogroll, a Recent Readers section (courtesy of our friends at MyBlogLog), and last but not least…enabling Comments. So have a look around, let us know what you think, and be sure to check back often.
Ryan Knight
Community Manager
Yahoo! Mail
i love you yahoo, peace for all
I have been with Yahoo mail from almost the beginning. I really enjoy it and the service I get when there are problems. As far as the new beta goes, I am I stuck in a very rural area with outdated dial-up. ( Century-tel will not upgrade our phone lines here ) So, the new beta does not load very fast at all. When I have used it from town connections it is really nice, but, I am unfortunately unable to use it at home.
Hey Yahoo, Just a few suggestions. Please offer options to remove the weather on the top right. I don’t want it displayed, it doesn’t have the locations I need. Even if it is a necessary, and only if absolute necessary, at least have options to change from F to Celsius. But I need the weather removed. I’ve been voicing this concern for half a year and Yahoo has not been updating this beta service so I’m confused.
I know its a very small concern, but the interface and performance is better than the rivals, so I don’t have anything bigger against the work you have done. Keep it up!
P.S. Rather than having fixed news selection on the “Home” page of the mail, how about having an ajax, personalized space for news and updates?
I agree with one of the posters above regarding “whitelisting.” I have actually used both the free and paid versions of Yahoo Mail and the Spam filtering just does not cut it.
I’m getting bombarded (thanks to the newspaper idiots that posted my real email address online on my freelance column and not the the temp one I created) with Spam lately.
Why can’t Yahoo give us a true Spam blaster? The web hosting company where I have one of my online businesses gives a simple “whitelisting” spam filter with wormholes and that shuts it all down.
If it wasn’t for all the temp. email addresses that I have set up through the paid version, I’d be out of here in an instant.
Hi Ryan, Welcome, and thanks for bringing back the blog. My only suggestion today is to include the blog entry date in the My Yahoo!Reader screen–and preferably in the Article List too. It would just be easier to scan for what’s old and what’s new.
As for feedback; I’m mostly quite happy with Yahoo!Mail Beta. Of course it’s not perfect–what in this world is?! But it mostly suits my needs and I’m willing to work through the bumps with you. I trust you’re all working hard like busy bees, and not just yakking about your favorite team with the guy in the next cube. ;-) Great work–thanks! Diane
The biggest annoyance I have with the beta is the inability to do inline quoting when replying to a message and the inability to snip out unnecessary text while replying. You are forced to either bottom post (bad), top post (worse) or not quote anything at all (not an option when replying to a series of questions).
I haven’t tried the beta in a while so if this has been fixed then you can ignore the above. :-)
I tried the ‘beta a year ago and hated it but decided to give it another try this summer and as I get used to the minor differences I am liking it more and more. What I like most about it is that I can see how many unread messages I have just by glancing in passing at my taskbar.
I don’t like all the ads but I can understand why you need them, please get rid of that one just to the right of the screen that I keep having to minimize. I know I can pay to have it removed but I’m hoping you can find it in you hearts to move it someplace where it can be just as annoying but not as invasive,(I NEVER read it anyway and would NEVER click on it).
My other complaint has to do with loading. I don’t know the technical jargon but loading the Ymessenger slows down my login and I think loading all those ads slows things down as well.
Overall I like the beta and I think when people get used to it they will wonder how they lived without it. Wasn’t there an even older yahoo mail before the present regular? People will get used to it.
Thanks!
My only real complaint about the beta is the resolution thing. I refuse to change my resolution just for one website. If you make it so that we can keep our current resolution and still be able to use the site, I’d switch back in a heartbeat.
There’s as many reasons to hate beta mail as much as there is to love beta mail. Unfortunately, the hate strangles any love. For starters, it’s way too clunky. It’s seems as if it’s trying to outwork itself. Nothing ever loads the first time around; if at all. I’ve had to switch back and forth from new to old a hundred times just to get at my inbox. Will this ever get straightened out? I’m thinkin’ gmail more and more.
I also tried out the Beta version and liked it with 2 exceptions (which made me stop using it): (1) couldn’t do the sort thing so that the unread messages were on top and (2) the Yahoo Messanger thing (which I do not use but couldn’t figure out how to turn off) would hang up my Yahoo Mail when it was loading. If these things could be fixed, I’d love to try the Beta version again.
youare funny
Despite what I believe to be great functionality from the yahoo Beta, no matter how many times SPAM gets into my INBOX and no matter how many times I delete with the SPAM button, it just keeps coming back. Yes, I have unsubscribed to the spammers who give the option, but many don’t. Long ago when I was just a naive newbie I gave my email out to some unsavory group of hucksters…now I am still paying for it. It seems to me that if I press “SPAM” then from that point onward it should never be received in my INBOX again….the long and short of it is that I am so tired of getting junk in my INBOX that soon enough if things don’t change I will have to switch to GMAIL…which I don’t want to do, but will if the SPAM filtering doesn’t improve. NO, I will not pay $20 for plus, either. However, besides that sticking point, Yahoo beta mail is fun and easy to use.
Hello? How about giving some improvements on yahoo360 blog? Do you have new plans with yahoo blogs?
I have been getting some spam that makes it through the spam filter to my mail box. I am using the old mail version. The one characteristic that they all have in common is that there is no text, just a single PDF file. Is there any way to direct these to the bulk mail?
I think having this blog to get feedback from the end users is a great step forward by Yahoo. I would love a blog to provide feedback for other sections of Yahoo. I strongly believe that feedback from the end users is a mission critical function to keep Yahoo in the leadership position that it so strongly deserves.
THERE IS AN OLD SAYING “IF IT ISN’T BROKE DON’T FIX IT” . SO PLEASE DON’T JUNK THE OLD YAHOO MAIL AS FAR AS THE BEST FEATURES ARE CONCERNED. i THINK IT FAR EAISER AND MUCH QUICKER THAN BETA. I HAVE TRIED IT TWICE AND IT JUST TO BUSY AND THE WINDOW TO READ THE MAIL IS WAY TO SMALL; AND THE PRINT NEEDS TO BE LIKE THE OLD YAHOO. SO DON’T MESS WITH MY OLD YAHOO MAIL PLEASE AND TYVM FOR READING THIS.
THANKS
RON
i am a new user on yahoo. i like the previous mail beta . sorry for disapointing you .
I have had my yahoo account for around ten years now. I have tried to switch to new beta version twice and didn’t quite like it both times. It has too many bells and whistles for my liking making it hog more resources than necessary. I am back to using the regular version and will wait for a lightweight version of the current beta before considering the switch. Thank you.
I too have had a Yahoo mail account for several years and plan on keeping it (the old version, not the Beta). My brother, a computer geek recommended a gmail account. I said no thanks. I have one, have never used it for anything and still get spam in my inbox!! Yahoo is VERY good at filtering spam. I get tons of it, but 99.9% of it is filtered out. Good job, Yahoo. Keep it up. thanks
Just joined Yahoo today and look forward to reading your Blogs. Wish me well. Regards.
My wishlist for Beta…
1. It really should be working with Safari by now, especially Safari 3 on the Intel Macs. Don’t shut out the Mac users; we’re gaining market share, you know!
2. The search options in Classic are so much better. Can you somehow combine them? I know you can use many search terms in the little Beta search box, but they don’t seem to work well.
3. Allow me to completely eliminate the RSS feed feature. Sometimes Mail hangs up because it seems to be waiting for RSS feeds to load. I don’t use my Mail for RSS.
Other than that, I really do love the new interface. I don’t know why “harrypotter” above can’t still filter his mail in Beta. I’m using all my filters and love it.
And thanks, Ryan, for getting this going again!
Thumbs down on the Beta. Tried it twice for several days and just shook my head at the perpetual slowness. I sure hope you don’t dump Classic. (or G-mail here I come)
Aside from that and the “shake, rattle and roll” ads which can be eliminated for 20 bucks a year I have NO complaints whatsoever.
i tried the beat for quite a while, but switched back because of the messenger feature. more times than not, the computer would get hung up waiting for messenger to load. and it didn’t matter which computer i was using. i don’t even want messenger. there should be an option for it not to load at all.
This is my first computer. Yahoo and yahoo e-mail is easy for me to use. I enjoy it very much. thank you. Barbara.
I don’t like Beta because the font size is too small for my 84 year yung eyes…I use Mozilla to get on Yahoo because I can increase the print size easily…i realize font size is internet explorer’s fault…can you do anythingto increase size on Yahoo…I love Yahoo, but the old Yahoo is better…Roy
I’ve never had the opportunity to visit this blog. Would appreciate the chance to. Love Yahoo beta. Hope to see it soon! Thanx
I tried the new beta version, but I am a horrible typist and I live by the backspace button. In Beta whenever I use backspace when replying or composing it will navigate me away from my message and all is lost. I switched back to the old version..I love being able to use backspace!!
Hey Buddy,
Just wishin’ ya the best of luck with the blog. If I have an issue with Yahoo! Mail, I will most certainly contact you;-) The only thing I’ve had an issue with: the spam kaptcha seems to be kind of intermittent.
Again, just wishing you success with the new job.
Regards,
Damon
Wait — you can sort mail so unread mail comes at the top? How? And how do I know if I’m using the beta? I can’t remember. I think I went back to the old version a couple of times, but I don’t get any nags about a beta anymore, so I don’t know what I have. I think I kept the old version for the screen resolution and because I like to have the pink color backgrounds I want. Does using it with Safari make any difference?
Excellent. We just can’t get enough of the blog.
I love blogs, I’m into blogging, Yahoo Mail Blog rocks! Keep up the great work. Back to my blog.
With regarding to the Y!Mail box embbeded in the MyYahoo, i’d really like to have the option to select and remove emails without having to enter into the Y!Mail.
I tried Beta when it first came out. It was difficult to use…lots of little things that made it very cumbersome. I did like some of the new features. Finally, I decided to switch back to the old, now when I try to use beta I get all kinds of errors and it won’t open up to let me switch to it. I wrote the errors down and sent them to tech support. That was a few months ago. Never got a reply. But then since it is all free I can’t really complain.
Just a few thoughts when I was reading these comments / requests.
I’ve been with the same Yahoo account for a long time (probably over 10 years) and am still satisfied with the service it provides.
When you get a free unlimited e-mail account you shouldn’t nag about the adds; the people maintaining the site and the equipment needed for it, need to get paid for too.
When you get 1200 spam mails a week you should probably rethink the way you surf on the web / to who you hand out your mail adress / the forms you fill out.
I tried yahoo beta and I decided I liked the old Yahoo mail more. There are several reaons, but the main one is that I am a creature of habit and I am used to the old layout, besides, it keeps most of the “flashing adds” of my screen and I don’t have to mess with the “post it” notes :-)
Thank you Yahoo mail
Alain
it was really nice to have that unlimited space but i was experiencing failure in my yahoo account, can you help me??? i am just a new user of yahoo mail. please
Cute Picture :-)
the one thing I don’t like about the new mail is the change of screen resolution. why can’t it stay the way I have it now? the small print makes it hard to read and changing constantly is a pain.
the one feature I used most frequently in the old version was filtering my mail
Thanks for keeping us up-to-date, but it spurs another question: Where can I submit feature requests for the mail product? It was tremendously cool when the Yahoo IM integration was announced, but I would like to be able to flag unsolicited Messenger sends to me (Offline/Online messages tab in Yahoo Mail) as “spam” just like I can now do so easily with email messages.
Any thoughts?
Mark
I love Yahoo! Mail beta. It’s far faster and more feature filled than the classic, and in my book it beats all the alternatives. The problem, though, is browser support. More specifically, support for Opera. Opera is the most standards compliant browser out there, not to mention it’s the fastest and most feature filled. Y!MB isn’t in early testing anymore. It’s gone public, and for good reason since it is stable and fast. It’s lack of wide range browser support makes it seem like more of a developing app and less of a functional service. For this reason, Yahoo! Mail beta must add support for the Opera browser.
I’ll probably c u in the Y-mail group,
James
I really don’t like the new version, the way it is in a tiny window and you have to scroll thru it to view messages is annoying. i like being able to see all my mail at once when I open it. I accidentally deleted mail from a friend due to this, I had some other issues, but i don’t remember what they are now, as I switched back to the old one after trying the new one twice. too bad, really…some of the features I was excited about, but it’s not worth the headache :(
7 years with the same Yahoo account and Yahoo mail finally won by beating me to death with its dancing/flashing, most irritating ads. For a time I kept little yellow “postem” stickers on my computer so whenever I would log in I could put the sticker on my screen and block the ads from my sight.. (like I’m really going to click on one of those ads) but I couldn’t keep it up.
I reluctantly ponied-up the $20 a couple months ago to get rid of obnoxious third party ads..
Things are better now but resentment towards Yahoo lingers long in some small corner of my soul.
Thanks for getting back to us.
We’re still here as well.
Love the Yahoo mail beta.
As long as we’re discussing spam filtering and mail searching, I have a request concerning both. I wish that I could search my spam folder, to see if there is mail there from anyone I care about. Currently, there are over 1200 messages in my spam folder (even though I have it configured to empty every week), and it takes forever to scroll through it looking for messages that shouldn’t be in there.
How about a more sophisticated mail search? I appreciate being able to keep EVERYTHING, but to find older messages, its starting to be painful to scroll back over pages and pages of hits.
It would be great to be able to “power search” a specific folder for a specific user or phrase or other field.
Hi!
Can I make a suggestion too?
Using the “Not Spam” button often doesn’t work well. I might get an email from XYZsite.com (some not very well-known (never spoofed in other words) site with a unique name, click “Not Spam”, and STILL the next time they send me an email, it still gets relegated to the junk folder. Even though they sent it from the same email address. Shouldn’t email from “abc@xyz.com” never ever be sent to the junk folder again, if i’ve clicked on the Not Spam button for an email from said address?
On a related note, I shouldn’t have to add commercial entities to my Address Book in order to keep emails from them out of the junk folder. No one should have to have their Address Books cluttered in such a way. There should be a simple White List instead. What do you think? I’m surprised Yahoo Mail doesn’t have a White List function at this point, given that it’s a well-known, perfectly useful concept, one that first came into use a very long time ago now, and Yahoo is the largest email provider. I figured such a function would have shown up by now! :-)
Anyway thanks tons for reading my comments.
Steven
Howard Kass,
I’ll relay that feedback too and see what I can find out.
Hi LilBro,
I’m not sure I’m following you, but Yahoo! Mail should be supported the same on IE and Firefox. Opera is not currently supported, but I will relay your feedback. We are constantly evaluating the latest browsers and our goal is to provide the best support possible
I really like Yahoo Mail Beta with one exception. Probably the one feature I used most frequently in the old version was filtering my mail so I only saw my unread messages and THEN sorting THOSE messages any number of ways. With the Beta version, I can sort my mail so the unread messages are at the top, but I can’t isolate my unread messages from the rest so I can sort just those messages. Any chance of that changing?
But when will Yahoo mail be fully compliant with all web standards? Mozilla and Opera don’t provide the same capabilities as IE6/7, which says Yahoo Mail is not fully compliant.
Thanks for the kind words Larry!
I appreciate the no storage limit. I’ve been with yahoo mail for years and this is another reason to stay.