Answering some questions about new email domains
- Posted June 24th, 2008 at 2:15 pm by Ryan
- Categories: All-New Mail, Classic Mail, General, New Stuff
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
- Buzz up
- Subscribe via RSS
- 25 Comments
June 24th, 2008 at 1:44 pm
Will we get Opera and Bi Di support with the new domains?
Thanks.
June 24th, 2008 at 2:58 pm
all i want to know is how i can get a blog so only the people i know can read it and see what is up in my life
June 24th, 2008 at 5:44 pm
I really would like to see the ability of merging my new @ymail account with an existing @yahoo account as a second address/alias. I have a lot of emails saved and folders setup with the existing @yahoo account that I would hate to lose if I switch to using the @ymail. It would be nice to utilize the same existing space for both of my Plus accounts. I hope the Yahoo team will consider this as they are examining the issues.
June 24th, 2008 at 6:04 pm
I’m a YMail user since 1998. I’d never been happy with my user name so I decided to go for a ymail addy right away. Got the one I wanted and all is fine.
Decided to sign up for the Yahoo Mail Group again and then I noticed what you’re writing about… about the extra profile. I see the problem.
However..about the profile page: The default profile is my ymail user-ID — the full email addy. There is the usual box where you can hide your email addy, but that doesn’t really matter as it is stated on top in the nickname bar.
June 24th, 2008 at 7:04 pm
oh, another thing: It seems I’m not able to sign up for Mybloglog with this new ID. Don’t know if the problem lies with them or the new ID.
June 24th, 2008 at 10:39 pm
Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t see what there is to get excited about here with domains… especially when there have been significant mail reliability problems lately, and certain features (i.e. IMAP) still have not been implemented (even in a paid form) nor has any time table yet been given for such an implementation. Everyday, I become a little more convinced that Yahoo has no and will never have the intention of making an “official comment” regarding IMAP functionality. It simply isn’t a priority for the company… reviving these domains took priority over that. That’s hard for me to understand.
June 25th, 2008 at 12:05 am
I’m still unable to get autosetup to work correctly for ymail on my mobile phone. When will you guys be providing updates to Sprint and the other cell companies? Or giving us the server info so we can set it up ourselves?
June 25th, 2008 at 7:39 am
How do we log into messenger with the new accounts, i think mine gave me an error!
June 25th, 2008 at 8:38 am
Dear Sir
I am Normrock I have problem in my account business mail occured today
actually I caanot access my account and I dont know what happen
please try to solve this urgent problem asap
I rest assured that you will do your best to help me with this concern ,plaese do
Many thanks
Normrock
June 25th, 2008 at 9:02 am
June 25th, 2008:
I use Yahoo! Mail Classic. Could you provide a statement about what change have happened to Yahoo! Mail Classic recently? It’s obtained a different look in the last 24 hours. Thanks.
June 25th, 2008 at 12:45 pm
Andy,
-
I’ve commented on this in older posts on this blog. The Classic update has been in process for the last several weeks, and should be pretty much completed today. Some changes were mostly cosmetic, others involved streamlining of some seldom used options/features. Overall the system is MUCH faster, and will enable more efficient updates in the future.
-
Ryan
June 25th, 2008 at 5:49 pm
plus.smtp.mail.yahoo.com >> Will not work w/ @ymail.com (linked Plus) account. Can receive mail through plus.pop.mail.yahoo.com, but cannot send.
Ryan…. any news on when this will be fixed?
June 25th, 2008 at 8:39 pm
Ryan, please explain your comment . Faster for whom? Nothing has changed on my system……I click on things and sit and wait - and I have high speed internet - I click send and wait, I click delete and wait. I’m trying not to be “violently upset” as you referred before to us that are upset, but I would like you to explain this faster system please. Could I stay with the slower system and have my Classic Yahoo back?
June 25th, 2008 at 9:22 pm
Hi cheryl,
-
I never meant to imply that everyone who has objected to the change has reacted “violently”, but rather that there have been comments that are not productive to a healthy discussion about the situation.
-
As I’ve said before, rolling back is not an option. What I’m hoping I can do is help keep the teams informed about what changes have caused some frustration, as well help these same folks understand why (so they can possibly incorporate that into future tweaks).
-
With regard to my “faster” comment…we ran a lot of tests and the newer version has been faster. It’s likely that there could be other involved if you are experiencing slowness.
-
Ryan
June 26th, 2008 at 12:51 pm
Persisting slowness in Classic Mail is more likely related to too large, too resource-intensive advertisements than the mail program itself. This problem will be more obvious with dial-up connections and/or older, slower computers.
June 26th, 2008 at 2:44 pm
What is wrong with your new email?
1) The InfoTips, these pop-up boxes that pop-up upon a mouse over, are so stupid. This is annoying, childish and serves no purpose but to aggravate the user. It is so “no talent”. If some people like this then they can have the option to turn that on. Otherwise turn it off.
2) These message boxes you have asking me…if I am sure I want to do what ever action I am about to do? Turn these off! Again, these are just juvenile and geeky. When I click “Close” I know I want to “Close”. It just creates and extra step which wastes my time. Do away with that.
3) The cc is automatically inserted when you compose an email. That’s so dumb. Put it like it was before where you had the option to add this to an email.
4) Why the “Flags”? Why would anyone in these right mind need that? If some dufuses need that then allow them to turn that on. Otherwise it’s jsut BS.
5) There are probably other things, I just haven’t had occasion to have to deal with them.
For the large majority of us email is not playtime. It is how we take care of our business. Please do not forget that we all have other options when it come to email.
Please understand, I’ve been with Yahoo since 1998 and I have several services with Yahoo. I’ve setup several friends and relatives with Yahoo accounts. I have never considered other services because I always considered Yahoo to be an honest, sincere, no BS product. I am now beginning to second guess my decision.
June 26th, 2008 at 8:13 pm
I thought “Forward as Attachment” was going to be preserved in the Classic upgrade. NOT IF YOU’RE ON A MAC, I GUESS! How is the elimination of this feature supposed to be an improvement??
June 26th, 2008 at 9:20 pm
I assume as a rocketmail user since 96 or so, I am still going to retain my rocketmail account as is?
June 27th, 2008 at 9:14 am
A good browser with an ad blocker will greatly speed up YMail and Yahoo! operation in general.
I can recommend Firefox with AdBlock Plus very highly. I never see ad content on my Yahoo pages now–and only occasionally just the word “Advertisement”.
June 27th, 2008 at 10:46 am
Hey thanks for this very helpful post.
I just want to clarify something.
You said…
“…you can create a yahoo.com alias for a ymail/rocketmail account.”
Just how do I do that? What does that exactly mean in the first place?
June 28th, 2008 at 7:10 am
I’m lost! I’m new to this and my question is can I keep my YAHOO.COM account and ADD this as a new one so I can keep both until I get ready to change over?
July 9th, 2008 at 4:31 pm
@eftan,
-
It’s kind of confusing. Yahoo! allows for members to create up to 6 different profiles. This can be done to keep certain activities separate (popular on Messenger).
-
Yahoo! Mail allows you to create a secondary email address, based on one of these profiles. An example would be if I created a profile for “ryan_ymailblog” on my “ymailblog1″ account.
-
I can login with either/both, and could send/receive email from the second address too.
-
However the system only supports alias email addresses based from the original “@yahoo.com” structure. So any user (regardless of ID type) will be able to create alternate profiles or email addresses, but they have to be @yahoo ones.
-
Ryan
-
July 9th, 2008 at 4:35 pm
Terry,
-
As I mentioned in the post, there isn’t an option to combine them. You would have to register the new account and then transition your activity to that one.
-
Ryan
July 23rd, 2008 at 12:20 am
Hi there,
I’d really like to reactivate my old rocketmail address, but unfortunately I’m still getting the “… Yahoo! Mail does not support the reactivation of rocketmail accounts …” message. I’ve already contacted the Yahoo! Mail support team a few weeks ago, but haven’t received an answer yet.
Will there be a way to reactivate rocketmail addresses? I mean, the address is blocked anyway so no one else can get it. Why not let the users reactivate it?
Regards
Aleks
August 27th, 2008 at 12:15 am
what is the smtp address for free ymail.com account and its port number? the authentication and SSL/TLS authentication seems different to plain free @yahoo.com account , is this true?. please help me ASAP. Thank you