All-New Mail Gets Kudos from WSJ

September 4th, 2007 at 11:25 am

Does it work with forwarding programs like entourage or Microsoft Outlook? If not, when will it?

September 4th, 2007 at 11:39 am

Since I downloaded the new yahoo email I am getting a lot of unsolicited mail. Anything to help?
Ray

September 4th, 2007 at 11:54 am

My number one most hated thing about the new Yahoo mail and the reason I actually switched back to the old one after trying it out for a while: all the nav links back to other parts of Yahoo FORCE ME TO USE A NEW WINDOW. I. ABSOLUTELY. HATE. THAT. CRAP. There’s just no excuse for that kind of disruption.

September 4th, 2007 at 1:23 pm

I echo Rob’s dislike, but not as dissatisfy as the amount of daily spams that manage to deliver to my inbox is incredible. I complained to yahoo, but no sign of improving. I am very very disappointed. If that doesn’t improve by end of the year, it will be time to switch my primary webmail ……

September 4th, 2007 at 1:24 pm

kewl!

September 4th, 2007 at 2:57 pm

I agree the amount of spam is huge. I happen to like the separate windows but the spam is not woth putting up with.

September 4th, 2007 at 3:43 pm

Those of you who are experiencing large amounts of spam may want to check your spam settings. The Yahoo filters work pretty well but only if they’re set up.

September 4th, 2007 at 5:10 pm

Have to agree with Jack. I’ve been very impressed by the spam that the filter catches, only an occasional miss. I’m even getting less spam in my spam folder of late, though way too much still.

September 4th, 2007 at 5:16 pm

I have used gMail, Hotmail and Yahoo! Mail and far prefer Yahoo! Mail. If you setup your Spamguard properly it will train your program to filter out the spam. However, what is spam for one is mail for another, so it takes a couple of months to train it properly after setting it up. I use the Plus! account, which costs twenty dollars a year, but the basic feature set it the same. Just ensure you allow popups for that URL and all will work fine.

September 4th, 2007 at 6:30 pm

When I try to get to mail using the Yahoo Tool Bar, my system “hangs”. Anything I can do to correct this?

September 4th, 2007 at 7:24 pm

I am still deciding between Live and Yahoo. I like the interface of Live better but it does not have a shared calendar that works worth a (*&^. The good thing about Yahoo is that it has Mail, Calendar, Launchcast, IM altogether. However, I do not like how it manages my other email accounts (without paying for the premium service).

September 4th, 2007 at 11:23 pm

I’m still confused about whether or not viewing mail in the “Reading Pane” or “Preview Pane” (as some like to call it)is equivalent to actually opening the mail. I’m concerned about mistakenly opening SPAM and allowing malware to infect my computer. Sometimes it’s impossible to know by the contents of the ’sender’ and ’subject’ fields if a message is SPAM. In those instances I wish I could sneak a peek at the contents of a message without actually opening the message. One might assume that the reading pane allows users to do this, though if that’s the case why isn’t that listed as a benefit of the feature in Yahoo! Help, in the tutorials, and most especially - in Yahoo!’s on-line guide to fighting SPAM??**********To make matters even more complicated, when you highlight an “unread” message and the contents of the message appear in the reading pane, the status of the message changes from “unread” to “read” according to the way a user sets that indicator in mail options. For example, I have my mail option set to change a message from “unread” to “read” if I view the message for more than 5 seconds. When I select an “unread” message with the reading pane turned on, the message remains in “unread” status if I leave the message viewable in the pane for less than 5 seconds. And it changes to “read” status if I view the message for longer than 5 seconds in the reading pane. Does Yahoo! equate the term “read” with the term “open”? If so, then users are technically opening messages when viewing them in the reading pane. This is contrary to what Mr. Mossberg writes in his article review, “And like Hotmail but not Gmail, Yahoo Mail offers a preview pane, like Microsoft’s Outlook, so you can see the contents of an email without opening it.” It seems to me that it wouldn’t make sense for Yahoo! to equate the term “read” with the term “open” and - at the same time - offer users the option to leave all messages marked as “unread”, regardless of whether or not a user has in fact read their messages.**********To clarify my concern, let’s say I have my Yahoo! Mail set to automatically open the reading pane whenever I sign-in to my mail account. I sign in to my mail and the content of the most recent “unread” message in my inbox appears in the “reading pane”. I see from the contents the message is SPAM. In scenario #1, let’s assume that viewing the message in the reading pane is NOT the same as actually “opening” the message. I can breathe easy and relax knowing that because the message didn’t actually open there wasn’t the potential for any malware to be loaded onto my computer. If that’s true it’s great because I can get my sneak peek into potential SPAM without risking harm to my computer. However, even if it’s true that the message wasn’t opened, the status of the message will still change to “read” (unless I set my mail preference to leave all messages marked as “unread”). And unless I immediately delete the SPAM message from my inbox, I may double-click the “read” message in a future session and -assuming a double-click is equivalent to “opening” a message - inadvertently allow malware to infest my computer at that time. And again, if viewing messages in the reading pane allows a user to see the contents of a message without actually opening the message why isn’t that touted as a benefit of the feature in Yahoo! Help, in the tutorials, and most especially - in Yahoo!’s on-line guide to fighting SPAM?**********In scenario #2, let’s assume that viewing the message in the reading pane IS the same as actually “opening” the message. If that is the case, Yahoo! has exponentially increased the risk to its users of having malware loaded onto their computers because - when the reading pane is turned on - mail “opens” automatically. And that would make the reading pane a “pain in the @#$”!**********Incidentally, I did contact Yahoo! Customer Care about this a long time ago and the response I got was simply an explanation of how to turn the reading pane feature off. I can only assume that that means a message is in fact “opened” when it appears in the reading pane. So, unless you don’t care that potential SPAM opens automatically every time you sign in to the All-New Yahoo! Mail, I suggest you turn the reading pane off.**********1) Yahoo! needs to define what an “open” message is for its users AND explain what visible indicator a user can rely on to know if a message has been opened. 2) Yahoo! needs to clarify the function(s) of the “unread/read” setting AND explain if and how that feature relates to the actual “opening” of a message.

September 5th, 2007 at 12:18 am

I wish they would just keep the old mail & put the PhotoMail function back on. Using all these other photo programs is such a pain. Now I can’t write an e-mail & just decide to enclose a picture or even several. I have to send the e-mail & then open a photo sharing site & send a second e-mail NOT A GOOD IDEA!!! Too bad nobody from Yahoo will read & respond to this.

September 5th, 2007 at 1:48 am

congrats on your kudos. I’ve tried the new Mail twice, and it was awful for me. Clearly I’m in the minority here, but it slowed down my computer completely and was painfully slow even just within mail, along with constantly getting hung up on various functions or rollovers. And it looks like some 1990s Microsoft product. iPhone it aint.

September 5th, 2007 at 1:53 am

I want to update my email because there was many errors when loging -beta version-

September 5th, 2007 at 2:46 am

I agree that there is way too much spam getting into my mailbox, even with the spam filter on. I make sure to mark every unwanted message in my inbox as spam, but i still get at least 10 new spam messages every day. why can’t yahoo do something about this? i don’t have this probmlem with my other email programs.

September 5th, 2007 at 3:13 am

I second all the comments about SPAM, but most of the SPAM appears to be coming from POP accounts which I retreive from Yahoo! mail (I have a PLUS account). I tested a GMAIL account, and found their SPAM filter much better - but GMAIL doesn’t offer any folders, so saving and filing business emails about specific topics is difficult on GMAIL…PLUS that whole ‘converstaion’ thing is challenging to keep up with. The BIGGEST bonus for GMAIL, is that they support my BlackBerry (7250) with their mobile program, which Yahoo2Go, does not. My solution, for now, is to have my POP mail forwarded to a disposable Yahoo! address, where Yahoo’s SPAM filter catches MOST of the garbage. I still use GMAIL, for personal communication, because I can access it on my BlackBerry. That solution may not work for all, but it is the best compromise I have found to maximize the strengths of both mail services…but I sure wish Yahoo!Go2 would support my BlackBerry 7250

September 5th, 2007 at 3:34 am

Everything about Yahoo is extremely interesting, but I find it difficult to log on my e-mails at times. Please help me with that.

Amanda, South Africa.

September 5th, 2007 at 3:50 am

any chance you guys can add IMAP support to Yahoo Mail Plus?

September 5th, 2007 at 3:52 am

any chance of yahoo mail plus IMAP support?

September 5th, 2007 at 3:54 am

I agree with Gerald. I loved the photo insert option of the old Yahoo Mail. Now, the old Yahoo Mail doesn’t even have that anymore. The new Yahoo Mail also seems so cluttered compared to the old. I haven’t found any new features that I really love on the new Yahoo Mail and have switched back to the old.

September 5th, 2007 at 4:07 am

I could not be more disappointed with the new mail I have tried and gone back several times just to see if they fix problems. Just like others, spam even with filters does little good. My connection speed is 10megs yet when I try new mail it loads slow and page layout is no good. It would be nice that all the effort to build hype was being used to really provide a quality product that works!

September 5th, 2007 at 5:13 am

THE NEW YAHOO FORMAT IS GREAT .. AS IT SEEMS YOU JUST CANNOT SATISFY EACH & EVERY USER …

PERHAPS YAHOO MIGHT CONSIDER ADDING A FEATURE TO HIDE AREAS FOR USERS WHO COMPLAIGN THERE IS TOO MUCH TO VIEW IN THE NEW FORMAT; MYSELF FOR ONE FIND THE NEW VERSION GREAT & EASY TO MANEUVER THRU; ..

SPAM IS STILL A HUGE FACTOR I GET LOADS OF IT AND I SEE NO REASON WHY SPAM IS BEING DELIVERED TO MY YAHOO MAIL ACCOUNT; THERE IS A YAHOO USER WHO IS USING FREE YAHOO MAIL SERVICE TO SEND SPAM TO ALL YAHOO USERS; .. TRUE … TRUE … TRUE …

September 5th, 2007 at 5:24 am

Tried it twice and in two states on two computers, and using dial up just doesn’t cut it. There is way too much automatic stuff that doesn’t work with the speed of earlier Mail. It is like Microsoft programs that has just too much stuff and slows down the computer. Wish we could check and choose what we actually need.

September 5th, 2007 at 7:16 am

I am still on Beta and so far had no problems. The flag which says I have new mail does not always work.

I wish there was a way to save a set of messages or a whole folder as a file which I can later upload. I don’t want/require POP.

Well I hope the release version will be better.

September 5th, 2007 at 7:36 am

The new Yahoo! Mail GUI is great. I’ve been using it since nearly the start of beta and have never been disappointed. When Microsoft introduced their similar rendition earlier I also tried it out and was sorely disappointed by the bugginess as well as not being as user friendly as Yahoo’s. Probably had Microsoft been first I would have been satisfied that it was an improvement over the old static email interfaces, but Yahoo was first and best from the start (never tried Gmail so can’t comment). For people use to Outlook, the Yahoo interface is great and makes going through email a breeze.

Although one addition I’d like to see from Yahoo is drag and drop attachments similar to Outlook and even some other websites now like Kodak’s Ofoto add-on to Firefox. At the very least you should be able to select multiple attachments at the same time for uploading (i.e. ctrl+left mouse or shift+left mouse) instead of one by one in the dialog box. Just a suggestion…

September 5th, 2007 at 8:16 am

i never have any problems and i hated the old yahoo mail, never get spam, anyone can if they click on everything in site.

September 5th, 2007 at 9:01 am

I have tried the new yahoo and had problems I associated with Mac, but it sounds as if others were experiencing more problems. I switched back to what I thought was the old mail and been satified with that since. I remain hopeful that the giant “Yahoo” will get things stabilized soon.

September 5th, 2007 at 9:10 am

Complete compatibility with Opera would be nice.

September 5th, 2007 at 10:52 am

Re; SPAM

From most pages on Yahoo! click the “mail” hyperlink in the upper left hand corner.

Click Options
Click Account Information
Under “Member information”
Click Edit your marketing preferences.

By default, when we sign up, we agree to being contacted by sponsor’s. These are said sponsor’s, and we are allowed to opt out, by unchecking these boxes.

~M.N. (Yahoo! Mail User since 1999)

September 5th, 2007 at 12:18 pm

I hate the new mail! I cannot even open my inbox because it just continues to say it is opening my inbox. It said it would be easy to switch back to the old mail, yet I cannot find a spot to do it. I am very angry because I can’t even view my mail anymore. I like the old way much better!

September 5th, 2007 at 12:22 pm

I tried the new Yahoo mail and didn’t like it. I only have access to the internet via dial-up only. Satelite is available but too expensive. I switched back to the old version because it just took too long for my mail to load on the screen using the newest version. Same goes for the new personal webpage too.

September 5th, 2007 at 12:27 pm

Can somebody tell me how to switch back to the old yahoo mail????

September 5th, 2007 at 12:30 pm

I love the new yahoo mail! Its the BOMB!!!!!!!

September 5th, 2007 at 12:59 pm

My main complaint about the new mail, and this prevents me from using it, is that it takes FOREVER to scroll down the list of folders (I have almost 200) to move a message to the desired folder.

You should be able to either have a scroll bar or be able to type the first (more would be better) letter of the folder.

As it is, I will stick with the old mail.

September 5th, 2007 at 1:31 pm

PLEASE make the new Yahoo! mail compatible with apple’s safari browser (which is soooo much faster and cleaner than IE7. Oh, and before I switched to Safari, I did use the Yahoo! mail beta. Pretty cool, but ditch the ads.

September 5th, 2007 at 2:31 pm

Um, you obviously don’t know how Yahoo! remains ‘free’ then, do you? (It’s $20 a year to get rid of the ads - well worth it to me).

I LOVE Yahoo! Mail Beta - I haven’t been converted to the full release yet, but it’s awesome. Spam isn’t a problem - liks a user before me said, if you’re willy nilly giving out your e-mail address you’re going to get spam. It’s a little slow, but no slower than original e-mail. I just wish everything was integrated. WOuldn’t be hard to integrate the calendar and notes and settings, etc. For now Google Calendar blows Yahoo calendar out of the water. Once Yahoo integrates the calendar though I think Yahoo might stand a chance.

September 5th, 2007 at 2:43 pm

Jim -
Just forget about Safari! I have a Mac and never use Safari. Download Firefox (it’s free and terrific) off the web and you will be happy forevermore.

September 5th, 2007 at 3:07 pm

i had yahoo mail beta. i now have regular yahoo mail. how do i go back to yahoo mail beta?

September 5th, 2007 at 3:43 pm

Nice work. Using Firefox on multiple computers. Lots of spam - but ends up in spam folder. Thought my gmail account would be my primary account, or hotmail via Outlook, but the new Yahoo mail is just plain better than those 2 options. Fast + accurate.

September 5th, 2007 at 4:20 pm

STill myu biggest complaint regardless of the use of “old” or “new” is that the amount of spam I still recieve even with the blocker on. Daily I receive gross ads for “enlargement” of an appendage and that isnt the worst but by far the most prevalent. Please Yahoo, do something, something about this nuisance. I never used to get spam at all and contributed it to Yahoo!
thanks

September 5th, 2007 at 4:38 pm

I switched to Yahoo Beta and its fun chatting without going to messenger. I switched back to the old yahoo, but now I cant find my way back to Yahoo beta. PLEASE HELP!

CA

September 5th, 2007 at 6:38 pm

Has any work been done on the calendar and notebook aside from the calendar strip?

September 6th, 2007 at 3:51 am

I am really do not know computers but I have been trying to figure all this out, every time I think I am ok, I end up somewhere else and have to call a tech. to fix my computer again. I find that yahoo is the easiest to use. I am still trying to figure all this 360 stuff out. I am always at home and tried to set up the blog thing just to have people to talk to,still having problems with that too.I do not like the chat thing, (to wild for me),so I Stick to what I know,why change if it’s work.Yahoo is the easiest one to follow.

September 6th, 2007 at 6:59 am

This is a bit off topic, but I’m not sure where else to post this feedback. I’m actually writing about the new Yahoo Mail Mobile. I love the new Yahoo Mail but the new mobile product is TERRIBLE. It seems you took the worst aspects of the old mobile and mobile beta and combined them into the new product.

1. You only see your inbox and you cannot tell if you have new messages in any other folders upon logging in. Any power user (the type of user most likely to use the mobile product) is going to have filters set up. If you want to check for new messages in other folders, you have to click on each folder. That makes no sense, especially for a user that has messages filtering into several folders.

2. When reading long messages, you only receive a very small part of the text before you have to click “more.” This makes reading long messages tiresome, especially if you are on a slow mobile network. Plus, why must each new part of the message be downloaded with the full header? When checking on my mobile phone screen, I pull down more header than message body each time I click on more.

3. Finally, when using a blackberry, only messages that go to your inbox are pushed to your blackberry. Once again, any power user (the type who would value the mobile product) is going to have mail filters set up so that messages are directed to folders. Every new message should be pushed to the blackberry unless you set a filter with blackberry telling it not to push certain messages.
–
When people check their email on the go, they simply want to be able to find and read their new messages with as little effort as possible. The new Yahoo Mail Mobile makes it harder to find new messages unless they are in your inbox (not filtered to a folder) and then makes it harder to read longer messages.

You guys did such a wonderful job with the new Yahoo Mail. How about putting some common sense into the mobile product or at least giving us the opportunity to revert back to the old program? I love the Yahoo Mail product (been a paying “plus” user for years) but the fact that it performs so poorly in the mobile environment is enough to make me switch to another provider.

Thank you

September 6th, 2007 at 8:15 am

After reading all the comments, I am glad I still have the old yahoo mail. For some reason, mine has not switched over to the new format. Not looking forward to the switch, which will come eventually whether I want it or not.

September 6th, 2007 at 8:34 am

Remember the old saying if it aint broke don’t fix it? While I believe change can be good, I hate the attitude everybody must change over or else. I was happy with the old Yahoo, and after reading comments from others it looks like I’m not alone here.

September 6th, 2007 at 10:46 am

Looks like there is still a lot of confusion around how and when people are switched from Classic mail to the Beta or to the All-New Mail.

If you are in Classic and prefer Classic we are not forcing you to change to the newer version. If you decide to try the newer version you can switch back at any time.

If you were already in Beta, you either have been (or will soon be) switched from Beta to the New Mail.

So the only folks who are being switched automatically are those who were already using Beta. Classic users will remain in Classic.

-RyanK

September 6th, 2007 at 1:02 pm

i have been having trouble with yahoo mail for a while now. as of right now, i can’t even get access to my own email account which i have had for years. thanks for the upgrade….hope there is nothing in there i have to use any time soon.

September 6th, 2007 at 2:46 pm

I also have tried the new mail beta twice and the “official” release once having the same complaint all three times. In “old” Yahoo! mail, one is able to view mail by “Unknown Senders” which I found to be a very quick and convenient way to remove spam from my inbox. I am a Plus user and every couple of weeks, delete all my blocked addresses to refresh the list with all the new spam. I get 50-75 pieces of spam a day and I am careful not to click on unknown links and give out my e-mail willy-nilly, I just have used the same e-mail address for upwards of 12 years now. The “new” (and not so improved in my humble opinion) mail does not distinguish mail from users in our address books from unknown senders (old mail has the little contact/address card symbol next to the from). That is the thing I missed the most with all attempts at trying the “new” mail and why I am extremely glad that Yahoo! is allowing users to continue with the Classic version. Until that little icon is added to the “new” mail (and the option to view mail different ways - read, unread, flagged, unknown senders, etc), I will stick with the tried and true. Thanks for letting me vent as my comments when switching back to Classic never seemed to get heard.

September 6th, 2007 at 7:09 pm

To Jim:
I’m using Safari and Yahoo mail works great with it.Give it another try. Van

September 7th, 2007 at 12:54 am

It’s too slow. Even with 2MB broadband it’s still too slow. That’s why I abandoned it.

September 7th, 2007 at 6:31 am

i’ve been havin’ trouble with ma yahoo i cant even get access to send mails and who can i chat 2?

September 7th, 2007 at 6:32 am

any way yahoo rocks i luv it keep up da good work.

September 8th, 2007 at 12:52 am

I left a lengthy comment earlier that was critical of a couple features of the New Yahoo! Mail. However, I want to add that overall I think the New Mail is an excellent program - especially compared to programs offered by other services like Microsoft and Google.

I’ve used Yahoo! Mail exclusively for nine years and the New Mail since shortly after beta version became available. One of the things I like best about New Mail is the “structure” of the interface - the placement of icons, the tabs feature, the home screen. It all flows together in a way that makes it easy to navigate the program despite the large amount of icons, links, etc. that compete for one’s visual attention. Equally impressive to the substance of the New Mail is the look or “style” of the program. In fact, the entire Yahoo! network has a style that creates a cohesive brand between all of Yahoo!’s services. Such depth of style is very limited on Microsoft’s network and virtually non-existent on Google. Personally, I favor Yahoo! Mail and its other services for the substance of content, features, and technical sophistication - though style is valued as much and even more by many people. Due to value that style can buy for a company’s brand, I predict that Yahoo! will inevitably overtake Google as “King” with advertisers and investors on Wall Street - as long as Yahoo! continues to innovate and create in a wide variety of services. I believe history will show that Google made a huge “Boogle” by investing everything in technological innovation and virtually nothing to create stylized service cohesion.

My wish-list for additions/improvements to the New Mail:

1) Option to have “mirror copies” of suspected SPAM messages delivered to my Inbox instead of the original message to prevent malware from loading on my computer. In this scenario, Yahoo! would first open a message, then make a copy of the message and send it to my Inbox. I would be able to open and read the message without worry because the copy came from Yahoo! and not directly from the creator of the SPAM. Yes, some people will be concerned that it threatens personal privacy. That’s why I propose that it be completely optional - and able to be selected on a per message basis. In addition, perhaps a user could have the option of setting such a feature so it doesn’t apply to messages from contacts - thereby eliminating concern over Yahoo! opening messages that can contain highly personal content from family/friends.

2) Further integration of Mail with other Yahoo! services. For example, I’d like to see Photomail (currently a feature offered only in the original Mail) added to the New Mail as other people have suggested.

3) Updates to Mobile Mail to make using it more efficient and improve synchronicity with New Mail.

Thanks to Yahoo! for creating the Mail Blog!

September 9th, 2007 at 9:16 am

I like the new mail (I’ve been on beta for over a year) except there is no “view only unread mail” which leads me to my problem. I switched back to the classic mail so I could just view unread, and now I can’t figure out how to switch back to the new format… any help?

September 9th, 2007 at 2:04 pm

I’ve been rockin’ Yahoo! Mail for years and love the new interface.

bill p: I can’t “view only unread” but can certainly sort by unread so that all unread messages are at the top. I’m still in the Beta interface, but to sort by unread, I click the “i” to the left of the From header.

September 9th, 2007 at 9:53 pm

Well, it’s 11:50pm MDT on Sunday, 9 September 2007, and I’ve still seen neither hide nor hair of the “New Yahoo Mail”, and I’ve had my Yahoo premium account for 10 years now. Would be nice if we could get a straight answer from Yahoo management on how much longer it’s going to take them to complete the rollout.

September 10th, 2007 at 1:20 pm

The new Yahoo Mail is slow slow slow! Way too slow. I have a 5MB cable connection and use Firefox. I either cannot log in or if I can it takes way too long for things to load. Most of the time the new mail never finishes loading all the graphics and mail. Using Internet Explorer 7 improves things a little but I dislike that browser.