Yahoo! Mail Blog

I don’t know about you, but I have this funny feeling that this summer is shaping up to be a repeat of last summer (not in a good way). Well, at least here in London, things have been grey as all get out. So to brighten your day, I thought I’d share with you, a new feature that’s recently launched in the all-new version of Yahoo Mail.

If you use the all-new version of Yahoo! Mail, and if you email a lot of photos, you probably have already seen this feature, but just in case you haven’t come across it, there is a new feature that was added that allows you to view the photos that are attached to your yahoo mail directly from your Inbox.

Here’s how it works (easy as 1-2-3):
For this example, I’m working with an email that includes three photos, but the same applies whether there are 2 or 200 photos attached. When I open up the message that has photos attached to it, the bottom of the message is going to look like this (without those crazy red boxes and numbers):

1. If you click ‘1’ you will be able to view the image directly from within the all-new Yahoo! Mail interface.
2. If you click ‘2’ you’ll start a slideshow that will allow you to scroll through all the images attached, which is very similar behavior to number ‘1’. (For more detail on ‘1’ and ‘2’, have a look further down this post to the next image where I’ll talk about the image viewer.)
3. But, after all the oohs and ahhs have worn off, this is what I REALLY like about this new feature… If you liked the download all feature, you’re really going to love this. ‘3’ allows you select from the attached pictures and only download the ones that you choose. All you have to do is put a check in the box of the pictures you want to download and then click the “download selected”. Of course you can still download all, but let’s face it I’m not that good of a photographer.

So what’s this image viewer all about?
If you’re still reading, let’s take a look at what happens when you click ‘1’ or ‘2’ from above. A sort of window pops up (it’s really an overlay) with the image you just clicked:

So here’s what you can do with the photo-viewer when it pops up (staying with the easy as 1-2-3 theme):

1. Whether you click on a picture or the slideshow link, you can scroll through the pictures that are attached to the image. So what’s the difference? Well if you click the slideshow link, then it starts with the first image, and if you click a specific image, you’ll then go to the next image.
2. Clicking ‘2’ will stop and start the slide show. If the slideshow is playing the text in the red box above will say “pause” instead of “play”.
3. Clicking ‘3’ does exactly what it says on the tin. To close your photo-preview or slideshow, just click the “close” button.

So that’s it. The beauty is in the simplicity, and I still think the ability to download selected photos is fantastic!! Unfortunately, this feature is only available to users of the all-new mail, so if you’re a classic mail user, feel free to switch.

Happy Photo Viewing!
Andrew – Yahoo Mail! Team

You may have first noticed the charming, yet goofy, ambassador for Yahoo! Mail almost two years ago, bouncing and pogo-ing around the beta version of what is now the All-New Yahoo! Mail (and of course pictured here on this blog as the caped crusader). Today I wanted to take the opportunity to not only get the skinny on our bespectacled friend, but share that skinny with those folks who don’t have the same insider access that I do.

It all began back in 1973. Born to a rocket-scientist mother and mailman father, Liam began perfecting the Chaplin-esque pratfalls we’ve come to love while establishing himself as the class clown of his elementary school. During his teen years he tried his hand at commercials, as well as music, but ultimately found his place working with his father at the post office.

It wasn’t long though before he had an epiphany. Liam wanted to be a part of the latest evolution of mail…email. As luck would have it, his mom had friends at RocketMail (the email engine that would become the foundation for Yahoo! Mail), and got him a job in the Yahoo! email room. As the product of a rocket-scientist and a mailman, Liam was perfectly suited to advancing communication technology, and emerged as the perfect advocate for Yahoo! Mail.

Though he has found great success in his role with the Yahoo! Mail team, all is not bliss for Liam outside of work…which is where you come in. Now you have the opportunity to help Liam find similar happiness outside of his job. Make Liam happy!

Happy emailing,
Andrew

Not too long ago, we celebrated the birthday of Yahoo! Mail. I still can’t believe that it’s already been 10 years. And as you read through that previous post, you’ll notice as time has passed, we’ve been improving and updating the Classic version of Yahoo! Mail in order to give you the best experience and most popular Web-mail in the world.

More changes on the way…
With the recent focus on all of the great features of the all-new Yahoo! Mail, quite a number of you have been asking “what’s the future of Yahoo! Mail Classic?”, and asking whether or not you’ll be forced to switch to the new version. Let me first say that we have no intention of retiring Yahoo! Mail Classic, and you will always have the choice of which version you want to use.

That being said, the Classic team has been working tirelessly to tune the technology behind Yahoo! Mail Classic as well as working on new features that will go a long way to – if I can use the term – ‘improve on a Classic’.

So what’s changing?
There’s a lot happening with Yahoo! Mail Classic. Some new features are being added, some changed and some removed. Over the years, we’ve been listening to your comments and what to you’ve been requesting as well as taking a look at some of the stuff you just don’t ever use. So I wanted to list here just some of the highlights that you’ll be seeing over the coming weeks:

– Auto-save to Draft – Yahoo! Mail Classic now automatically saves a copy of the message you’re working on in your Drafts folder in case you lose your internet connection or your computer malfunctions.
- Simpler uploading and downloading attachments – In most cases, downloading now requires just one click!
- One-Click Flagging – The new Flag column (just one column to the right of the check-boxes) makes it super easy to flag messages.
- Folder Renaming – Rename and delete your personal folders directly within the folder view.
- More Intuitive Names – References to “Address Book” have been changed to “Contacts”, and your “Bulk” folder will instead be called “Spam” (since that’s what it is).

There’s even more than what I’ve listed here. For the full list of changes, check out the “What’s different…” page within the help pages of the new Classic version.

When will these changes happen?
To be honest, some of you may already be seeing these new Classic Mail features. But most of you will see these changes arrive in Classic over the next few weeks. You can tell if you’ve got the updates by looking at the image above. If you see the features outlined in red, then you have the updates.

As always, happy emailing!!
Andrew – Yahoo! Mail Team