Yahoo! Mail Blog
The latest scoop on Yahoo! Mail product updates, new releases, bug fixes,

I don’t normally post on the weekends, but since this is for charity I thought I could make an exception. Earlier in the week you probably saw that we are auctioning off (with help from eBay Giving Works) some special ymail and rocketmail addresses for charity. Well those auctions are ending in a few hours, so don’t miss your chance to bid. And don’t forget … each winning ID also comes with 5 years of Mail Plus!

Ryan Knight Community Manager Yahoo! Mail

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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! Mail Team

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With so many of you snapping up shiny, new, ymail and rocketmail addresses over the last few days, I suspect at least a few of you will be wanting to actually use them.

As I mentioned earlier in the week, Yahoo! does not offer an option to merge multiple Yahoo! accounts together. Typically people opened secondary accounts because they wanted to separate different activities, not just to add email addresses, so it hasn’t really been an issue.

If an existing user is unhappy with their old ID, and prefers the newer ymail/rocketmail ID, we encourage migration to the new account (ultimately freeing up the older IDs for others down the line).

You are probably thinking to yourself “Migrate? How am I supposed to do that?”  Well guess what, it’s actually pretty easy.  As a Yahoo! Mail user you can have TrueSwitch do the dirty work.  Think of them as a moving company for your email home.  You provide some info and they pack up your stuff, move it, and even do the unpacking.

They’ll even give you the option of sending a personalized message to everyone in your address book, updating them on your new digs.  Yahoo! Help provides wonderfully detailed breakdowns for Classic or All-New Mail, but if you prefer a jumbo side of pictures with your instructions … I have some for you!

First up you need to login to your new email account and go to the Options menu.  Activate the Options dropdown (in either version of Mail) and select Mail Options.  If you are using New Mail you can even jump a step ahead by choosing Import Contacts.

Once you get to the Options page you will want to select Address Book (Classic) or Contacts Options (New Mail).  Once there you will see an option to Transfer Contacts to Yahoo!

Onto the security stuff.  We don’t want people moving you without your permission, so even though you probably entered your password a few moments before, we ask for it again.

Then we want you to review some stuff from legal and grant permission for what’s going to happen.

Once you have agreed to the terms, you will be asked to provide your login credentials for your older account.  If you take a closer look at the dropdown you will see that there are other options too (should you feel like moving any other accounts over to the new ymail home).

Steps 2 and 3 give you options for which content to move, as well as if you want to notify your contacts of the new address.  Then agree to the Terms of Service and Start Transfer!

After the fancy bar lights up for a few seconds you receive the congratulatory message.  Be sure to remember that the move will take place over the next 24 hours, so if you don’t see it when you login again don’t be worried.  You’ll get a message letting you know once everything is done.

Hope this helps make the transition a little easier!

Ryan Knight
Community Manager
Yahoo! Mail

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If you were thinking about moving to one of the ymail or rocketmail addresses, but simply couldn’t decide which address to pick, you are in luck.  The Yahoo! Mail team, along with help from the folks from eBay’s Giving Works team, are auctioning off select ymail and rocketmail IDs for charity.

Not only do the proceeds go to charity, but you get the added benefit of making a statement with every email you send.  Maybe you’d like to be pinkribbon at ymail or rocketmail to show support for breast cancer research.  How about supporting the World Wildlife Fund by opting for oceanadvocate?  As an added bonus, each account will come with 5 years of Mail Plus (that’s a $100 value).  There are lots to choose from, so check them out!

Ryan Knight
Community Manager
Yahoo! Mail

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It’s great to see that so many of you have taken an interest in the new, alternate domain, IDs, but I also see that there are a lot of you with questions. I thought it might be a good idea to try and address a few of the more common ones in a post. So here goes…

Does this mean all Yahoo! users will have to enter their full address when signing in?
If you create a Yahoo! ID with one of the new domains you will use the full email address whenever you sign-in to anything Yahoo! If you have an ID connected to the yahoo.com domain you can sign-in either way. That means you can use only the portion to the left of the @ symbol, or the whole email address. Totally up to you (and actually how it’s always worked).

Can I merge my new account with my @yahoo.com account?
Unfortunately not. Merging has never been an option for Yahoo! accounts, however we respect that many existing users may find this desirable with the addition of these new email addresses. We are encouraging users who wish to use the newer email address to migrate activity from the older account to the newer one, and we are also examining how we can address this on our side without ending up right back where we were (with all the “cool” IDs taken), because existing users snatched them up as secondary or thirdary tertiary IDs. It’s a balancing act, and we are working on where the balance should be.

Can I add a ymail or rocketmail address/alias to my account?
Nope, these domains are only for use with new accounts (see above ). But you can create a yahoo.com alias for a ymail/rocketmail account. Which leads us to the obvious next question…

If I close my yahoo.com account, can I add that ID as an alias/profile on my new account?
In theory, yes. In practice, it’s a gamble. We can’t promise when an ID will be released back into the wild. So deleting your old account should make that address available for use again, but it will be up to you to keep an eye out for it.

Do the POP/SMTP settings change if you are on one of the new domains?
Nope, the server settings will still reflect yahoo.com, regardless of the domain used in your new ID.

I registered using the new domain(s) but now I can’t access the new account(s)?
We underestimated the number of existing users who would rush out to register new accounts for themselves (and in many cases several accounts for family and friends), and some of them were snagged in a few our fraud prevention nets.   We’ve made adjustments to those nets, and have also reactivated any impacted accounts.

Yahoo! Groups is making me create yet another profile, why?
This one hasn’t been coming up here, but I’ve seen it elsewhere so it’s worth giving you a heads up. Groups users, that try to use the new IDs, will find that they have to create a public ID because their actual ID isn’t allowed. Can’t use the front half of your ID because it’s already taken by a yahoo.com user. Can’t use your full ID because it’s also an email address. So you’ll have to pick another ID. It’s a bit confusing, but I wanted to let you know that the Groups team is looking into how to make this process clearer.

Ryan Knight
Community Manager
Yahoo! Mail

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Hot off the presses…. We’ve just added two new domains to the Yahoo! Mail family. Now you can get that same top-notch Yahoo! Mail experience but with “@ymail.com” or “@rocketmail.com”.

What that means is that you have more opportunity to get the email address that you’ve always wanted. I’m sure you might be happy with bob1123322@yahoo.co.uk, but wouldn’t you prefer just plain bobby@ymail.com? Well, now you have the chance to get the name that you want.

Just go to www.yahoo.co.uk/ymail and register your new email address. I’m going to get mine right now.

Happy registering!
Andrew – Yahoo! Mail Team

p.s. For you history buffs out there, Rocketmail was the creation of Four 11, the company that Yahoo! bought in 1997 that launched Yahoo! Mail.

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For many of you this may not be all that exciting (heck, if you are reading the Yahoo! Mail product blog it’s reasonable to assume you have a Yahoo! Mail account already) but for a lot of people out there getting that perfect email address has proven to be a bit of a white whale. Even I had to settle for ymailblog1 because someone had already snapped up ymailblog. Well that ends right now (or actually in the next hour or so), because…
———————————————

What’s Old is New, Just for You

Ever tried to sign up for a new email account, only to find that the name you want is unavailable? We hear you – as the most popular email service in the world, Yahoo! Mail has more than a quarter of a billion users worldwide* – that’s a LOT of email addresses in use already. With that in mind, we’re making millions of desirable email addresses available today with the launch of two shiny new domains: ymail.com and rocketmail.com.

If “rocketmail” rings a bell, it’s because it’s “vintage” Internet. Back in the 90s, RocketMail was one of the very first free Webmail services – Yahoo! acquired it in 1997 and built the first version of Yahoo! Mail based on RocketMail technology. Some of the original RocketMail users chose to keep their RocketMail IDs to show that they had been among the first users of Webmail. Now, like so many beloved classics that are hip again – cupcakes, big sunglasses, Indiana Jones, The New Kids on the Block – RocketMail is back for a new generation to enjoy.

These new domains will offer the same great Yahoo! Mail experience – like unlimited storage, integrated instant messaging, free text messaging, and localized versions around the world. And as always, a Yahoo! email address works for everything across Yahoo!, from checking Mail to using Messenger, Flickr, Groups, Finance, and more. The added bonus is that with these two new domains, you’ll have the chance to land your perfect email address to help reflect who you are – which is what the majority of you are looking for according to a recent Harris Interactive survey.**

So whether your style is brand spanking new (ymail.com), hip vintage (rocketmail.com) or comfortable classic (yahoo.com), surf on over to http://new.mail.yahoo.com/addresses and get that email address you always wanted.

John Kremer
Vice President, Yahoo! Mail

*According to ComScore media metrix, April 2008
** In a survey of 2,035 online adults conducted by Harris Interactive, 56% of respondents indicated they somewhat to strongly agree with the statement that they want their email address to reflect who they are.

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Just a quick update for those of  you concerned about the spacing in HTML emails.  Our engineers have sleuthed out the problem, and a fix will be rolling out in the coming weeks.  

In the meantime, many senders have found that using two line breaks (<br>) instead of a conventional paragraph space (</p>) has been found to work.  

Thanks to all of the folks who provided samples and configuration details.  

Ryan Knight
Community Manager
Yahoo! Mail

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Update: The upgrade went OK. Not without a hitch or two, so you may have experienced some strange behaviour this afternoon. If you find anything wrong with the blog, please post a comment on this post, and I’ll investigate.

Hi everyone. In order to patch some security vulnerablities on this blog, I’m going to perform some maintenance work tomorrow (19 Jun). There may be some time where the blog is down due to this upgrade. Fingers crossed it will only be for a short while, but I’ll have a “upgrade in progress” screen to let you know while it’s down.

Wish me luck!!

Happy emailing!
Andrew – Yahoo! Mail Team

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As I mentioned last week, we decided to rollback the recent changes to the external retrieval feature. That rollback has completed and functionality should be completely restored. However, the changes also removed the recently added SSL option, so if you have recently added an account that utilized the new SSL option, any attempts to pull those messages will be unsuccessful.

Our engineers will continue to examine the issue before attempting a future rollout of the SSL option, but in the meantime you may be able to incorporate a workable solution. If your email service requires SSL to POP messages to another service, you may be able to Forward all messages from that account instead. Depending on how frequently you check external accounts, messages can even get to you faster this way.

Also, if you want to retain the option to reply from the address of the account that is being forwarded, you can add that address and send “from” it. In fact, once you have added and verified the external address, it’s as simple as a dropdown choice in your compose window.

We are very sorry for the frustration this has caused you, and appreciate your patience.

Ryan Knight
Community Manager
Yahoo! Mail

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