New email addresses for all my friends!
- Posted June 19th, 2008 at 12:08 pm by Ryan
- Categories: All-New Mail, Classic Mail, General, New Stuff
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…
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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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- 130 Comments
June 19th, 2008 at 11:40 am
I was clicking refresh waiting on the change at 2:00 but it didn’t happen. They my IP was blocked. Thanks.
June 19th, 2008 at 11:43 am
Is there a way to combine two different yahoo mail id’s into one? I was unable to get the user name I wanted when I signed up for yahoo mail 10 years back, but I was able to snatch one today with ymail. yay !!! It will be nice if Yahoo can provide an option of merging these two accounts into one, so that I don’t have to manage 2 separate accounts.
It’s nice for users who are signing up for the first time, but for existing users the additional maintenance of yet another account outweighs the benefits of having a desired user name.
June 19th, 2008 at 12:46 pm
WHy isnt the sign up working ?!
June 19th, 2008 at 12:48 pm
Any idea when you will unblock my IP address so I can get a shiny new email address?
June 19th, 2008 at 12:48 pm
I was able to signup for the Ymail account. Apparently, you have to refresh the page to see the drop-down options (ymail and rocketmail). Not sure what’s with the comments though. I saw a few comments that were deleted.
June 19th, 2008 at 12:51 pm
Yup, works for me now. Woohoo!
June 19th, 2008 at 12:51 pm
Sorry, this appears to be an invalid Yahoo! ID. Please try another.
June 19th, 2008 at 12:51 pm
KC, when I hit “sign up for my account,” the page refreshes and it shows name@yahoo.com is taken (instead of name@rocketmail, like it showed when I was filling out info.)
June 19th, 2008 at 12:54 pm
I signed up for a Rocketmail account just so I could see the features of that Yahoo site. Guess what??????? All the features I loved on my old Classic Yahoo - which have now been removed - are available on my Rocketmail account. What is going on? If the features were so bad they needed to be revamped on Classic Yahoo why are you offering them on these new domains?
It does me no good because I have way too many email files and contacts and way too many people to get in touch with to bother to change my main email to the Rocketmail account.
And I suspect you’ll decided to fix it also before you’re done messing with everything.
I do have to ask if John Kremer
Vice President, Yahoo! Mail has any idea how upset his Yahoo customers are?????
June 19th, 2008 at 12:56 pm
Megan, try closing and re-opening the browser or a different browser. I had the same problem but and had to refresh it a couple of times to see the option. As a last resort, try to empty your browser cache and see if that works… the page is probably served from your temporary cache. Good Luck !!
June 19th, 2008 at 1:01 pm
[…] Mai multe detalii cititi pe blogul oficial Yahoo! Mail. […]
June 19th, 2008 at 1:07 pm
Well, apparently now I am blocked. Whatever, I’m done with Yahoo. Nice try, though.
June 19th, 2008 at 1:15 pm
KC,
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There is no way to link the two accounts, but you may be able to use TrueSwitch to migrate contacts/messages and notify your friends.
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Ryan
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June 19th, 2008 at 1:18 pm
Cheryl,
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New accounts are randomly assigned to server farms, so some will end up on farms that have already been updated…and others will land on the others.
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Ryan
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June 19th, 2008 at 1:21 pm
Ryan, I know it seems we’re shooting the messenger when we really are shooting the message! I have mulitiple Yahoo accounts now….I think 5 and on all the “free” accounts the features remain….on the one I pay for, all the features have changed.
On a serious, trying to not fuss note, does someone, anyone know how upset Yahoo customers are?
Is that being taken into consideration?
June 19th, 2008 at 1:33 pm
Cheryl,
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I speak with the folks in charge of Classic about this type of feedback daily. It’s tricky because some changes that you (and others on this blog) are reacting violently to, are things that the vast majority of users are actually happy with. In other cases there are things we think we can tweak furher to make even more people happy. In still others there are workarounds and other things that will help users replicate what they already liked.
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If you’d like to email me with details of the specific changes, and how they have impacted how you use Mail, I’d love to read them.
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Ryan
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June 19th, 2008 at 1:39 pm
Signed up to get a YMail domain, worked just fine. I also have a yahoo mail acct.
Strange behavior tho. I log out of @yahoo.com; I log into the ymail.com, and i am in that mailbox…yet when I click the hyperlink for Yahoo inside the mail program…..surprise, I get the yahoo.com email account showing.
Using FF3, Vista.
I also verified the new address and someone ended up with some Yahoo New Zealand offer.
Hmmm.
June 19th, 2008 at 1:41 pm
Outgoing SMTP doesn’t work for on Ymail accounts for Y! Plus Subscribers.
I have a Y!Plus subscription b/c of my DSL provider (Verizon). I linked my new Ymail account to it and it is now a Y! Plus account; however, the outgoing SMTP server does not recognize my @ymail.com address or password.
June 19th, 2008 at 1:45 pm
Thanks for the link Ryan, but my account is almost 10 years old and will be difficult to reach out everyone and let them know that my address changed… plus there are a ton of website subscriptions that I have my yahoo id associated with. I hope you guys can take this as a feature enhancement and add to yahoo mail. You guys did this with SBC and Y! mail at one point and so don’t imagine adding this feature to be very difficult.
June 19th, 2008 at 1:45 pm
=bg=,
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Thanks for the heads up. I’ll pass along that report.
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-Ryan
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June 19th, 2008 at 1:53 pm
“Sorry, Unable to process request at this time — error 999.
Yahoo!
Unfortunately we are unable to process your request at this time. This error is usually temporary. Please try again later…”
Sign-ups don’t seem to be working for me. Anyone else having problems?
June 19th, 2008 at 2:00 pm
I am still blocked. It’s the refreshing trying to get the page to work. Oh well, Gmail works just fine.
June 19th, 2008 at 2:10 pm
I can’t sign up.
First, I selected ymail from the dropdown menu, but when I subumitted the information it automatically changed the domain to yahoo.com and told me it was taken.
No I can’t even access the page. I keep getting a 999 error. I have been checking back on and off for the last 2 hours or so and nothing has change…just a 999 error. Frustrating because I really want to register a ymail.com domain.
June 19th, 2008 at 2:12 pm
there is bug on new account registration page, just cant register. HELP, i mite again miss my fav id
June 19th, 2008 at 2:14 pm
Same here. My wife managed to snag a new account @ ymail but when I tried I got “999 error”
June 19th, 2008 at 2:18 pm
Now that @rocketmail.com accounts are back, are you going to allow old rocketmail users to reactivate their old email accounts? I lost mine years ago due to inactivity during an extended vacation… I just logged in using my rocketmail address, and it still says that rocketmail accounts can’t be reactivated and to sign up for a new Yahoo ID.
June 19th, 2008 at 2:19 pm
[…] detalii […]
June 19th, 2008 at 2:22 pm
[…] on the official Yahoo Mail Blog. If you’re new here, you may want to subscribe to my feed and read my newest entries by RSS or […]
June 19th, 2008 at 2:48 pm
I like my revamped Yahoo Mail Classic with one exception. For reasons I don’t understand, when I start typing in the addressee’s name, the auto-complete box appears *underneath* the text box where I type in the body of my note. Almost all the auto-complete box is obscured, and it’s impossible to use it to choose the right addressee. I can’t figure out how to communicate this problem the right way to the right people. Would you mind forwarding this on to someone who might know what’s going on? I certainly would appreciate it.
June 19th, 2008 at 2:50 pm
[…] Also, the official Yahoo! Mail blog post on this subject is available here. […]
June 19th, 2008 at 3:01 pm
I’ve noticed that the Yahoo! Mail login screen has lately displayed an example login ID below the userid field which consists of an entire email address (free2rhyme@yahoo.com) rather than just the Yahoo! userid.
Nevertheless I’ve continued entering just my Yahoo! ID without the domain name when logging into mail.
But now with the advent of the rocketmail.com and ymail.com domains, am I going to need to enter a full email address when logging into mail?
If not, will it assume a national Yahoo! domain (e.g., yahoo.com) for the domain name?
Also, currently a Yahoo! ID such as user123 registered at yahoo.com prevents the same Yahoo! ID from being available at the other national Yahoo! domains. Will that be changing so that more userids are available worldwide?
June 19th, 2008 at 3:03 pm
This just made my day. Truth be told, I stopped using yahoo because I didn’t like my old school username and couldn’t get the username I wanted. Petty I know…but seriously, who wants random digits at the end of their username!
June 19th, 2008 at 3:15 pm
I just figured out the 999 error was because of my IP address. It appears that for some reason Yahoo didn’t like my IP address and was blocking it. I used an anonymous proxy and was able to FINALLY sign up. If you are experiencing a 999 error, go here and sign up:
http://www.surfing7.com
June 19th, 2008 at 3:18 pm
I have a Yahoo! Mail Plus account. Each time I compose a message, I can decide — via drop-down menu — which of my Y! free or paid mail addresses I want readers to see in their ‘From’ box. Is there any way I can now include my brand-new ymail.com address among the options — so I don’t have to sign out of one Yahoo! account and into another each time I want to use the @ymail address? That would be ideal. Thx.
June 19th, 2008 at 3:56 pm
Do you know if it will be possible to forward your mail from @yahoo to one of the new domains @ymail with no cost? Thank you.
June 19th, 2008 at 4:46 pm
PS the other thing was, I signed up and put in my zip code…and it said THAT ZIP CODE IS NOT IN THE U.S. or something.
As I am fairly close to Yahoo itself in Sunnyvale, I am pretty sure I am still in the US.
I have an AT&T/Yahoo acct; (AT&T logo disappeared off of my version of Yahoo front door;) and I might just FWD mail to new acct..not sure.
But this is a great idea- I am sure the Gmail fanbois will be screaming you ripped them off—Gmail/Ymail; but who offered email first?
June 19th, 2008 at 4:53 pm
Ryan,
I have a new @ymail adress and have just upgraded it to a Plus account. I would like to create an extra 2nd @ymail address under my Plus account, but it looks like you can’t do that. You can only create extra @yahoo address right now. Do you know whether this capability will be available soon? The @ymail address I want is available now and I’d like to secure it before it gets taken, and I don’t want to create another primary account to do that.
June 19th, 2008 at 4:57 pm
Big ups to Kenneth for noticing the changes to the sign-in page. I was going to post about that a few weeks ago, but some people were worried that people might see predict today’s news before it was announced.
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The way sign-in will work is…any yahoo.com ID can sign in either with the short or long version (as has always been the case, even though the sign-in sample only showed short version). Anyone with a ymail or rocketmail based ID will always have to use the long version.
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Ryan
June 19th, 2008 at 4:59 pm
=bg=,
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I’ve seen another report of that happening, but it seemed to self correct. We are keeping an eye on it.
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Also, you mention you live near Sunnyvale…shouldn’t be you be outside enjoying this amazing weather?
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Ryan
June 19th, 2008 at 5:22 pm
It looks like many of you have questions about linking/joining/etc., so I’ll address a few of the most popular:
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There is not any way to link or merge the accounts.
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Users don’t have the option to create a ymail or rocketmail address as a alternate/secondary alias email. Only as a new account.
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Just as before, users can forward or POP email to/from their accounts, but the same rules apply (if Yahoo! Mail you must be Plus to POP elsewhere).
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Lastly, you can add the email address from another account to use as a “sent from” address, but that doesn’t link the accounts.
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Ryan
June 19th, 2008 at 6:16 pm
This is a great offering. I was able to get a nice ymail.com address. Now if IMAP access is ever offered I may consider using it.
June 19th, 2008 at 6:39 pm
You all remind me of cingular wireless. You all are raising the bar so high that nobody can get over it. Everything you are making improvements to doesn’t work for a lot of people that’s paying for a service,features I have on my SBCglobal account (homepage) I can not get on the free account. If you can’t merge the old account information into the new account what good it is changing anything. I finally can get the address name I have tried to have Yahoo let me have for about 10 years, but it is not worth having it if I can not merge contact information between the old and new accounts. So how do I cancel the new address I just got so somebody else can use it if they want.
June 19th, 2008 at 7:57 pm
John, I am with you 100% on this and your comments reflect my sentiments expressed early on in this discussion.
Yahoo should provide a way to link these accounts to help customers like us. How many here have more than one Y! mail accounts and need this feature. Can I see your hands?
I am not trying to chastise Yahoo, just want to get our voices heard.
June 19th, 2008 at 10:04 pm
Ryan,
I have a yahoo email address that I have been using for years. I got a new Ymail address this evening. I am having problems with the pop settings of the ymail when wanting to see it as an external account in my yahoomail account.
In short what are the ymail pop settings?
Thanks
June 19th, 2008 at 11:14 pm
How do i setup my ymail through microsoft outlook 2003 without subscribe yahoo mail plus?
June 19th, 2008 at 11:34 pm
[…] multe detalii pe blogul Yahoo. Via Bobby Etichete: Gmail, net […]
June 20th, 2008 at 12:16 am
“Users don’t have the option to create a ymail or rocketmail address as a alternate/secondary alias email. Only as a new account.”
Ryan, are you going to provide that possibility in the future? Thanks
June 20th, 2008 at 12:52 am
[…] pe inregistrari. Informatie aflata de la PCNews, multumiri. Mai multe detalii pe blogul Yahoo. Etichete: e-mail, pcnews, rocketmail, yahoo mail, Yahoo!, ymail Articole similare: […]
June 20th, 2008 at 1:15 am
What about Opera 9.5 support?
June 20th, 2008 at 1:30 am
This is GREAT!
But… I set up my new My Yahoo page and it says “HI ” in the upper-right area. It used to say “HI Paul”.
What happened?
June 20th, 2008 at 2:04 am
[…] Kremer, VP-ul Yahoo Mail a postat pe blogul oficial un anunt prin care noi aflam ca s-a dat liber la doua noi domenii pe care le putem alege atunci […]
June 20th, 2008 at 5:21 am
To help Ryan out a little, giving responses to all these comments… there’s a work-around to using two mail account under one.
- REGISTER YOUR NEW ADDRESS / ACCOUNT
Pick your brand new rocketmail.com or ymail.com address and set up the account with your details. Welcome to Yahoo! Mail.
- ENABLE POP ACCESS
I’m not sure if this is only available in the UK & Ireland, but if you click to Options > Mail Options > Pop Access & Forwarding
- LOG OUT OF YOUR NEW ACCOUNT, BACK INTO THE OLD
This is where we sign into your ‘old’ or current account - the one that you want to receive your email on. For example, I want to receive my @ymail.com email on my @yahoo.co.uk address, so I login to my @yahoo.co.uk at this stage.
- SET UP POP IMPORTING
Navigate to ‘Options > Mail Options > Mail Addresses’.
Click on ‘Add’
Enter ‘Account Name’ - this is not that important
Enter your name and new email address (ie, bob@ymail.com)
Enter the ‘Mail Server’ as pop.mail.yahoo.co.uk
Enter the ‘Username’ as your new email address
Enter the ‘Password’ as your new password.
Leave all the other options as they are.
Click ‘Setup Mail Server’
- VALIDATE YOUR ACCOUNT
Following the steps above will send an email to your new email address with an activation link, which grants your old email address permission to fetch email from your new email address.
Log into your new account and fetch this email. Copy the link to your clipboard and log out.
Log back into your original account and then paste the link into the address bar and finish the final steps on-screen.
- RECEIVING EMAIL
Unfortunately, hitting ‘Check Mail’ doesn’t check both accounts. It only checks your original one. To check your new one, you have to hit the ‘Check Other Mail’ option. Like so:
http://img511.imageshack.us/my.php?image=ymailimportvx1.jpg
June 20th, 2008 at 6:21 am
Ryan, it’ll be 100+ in the East Bay today. That means one thing:
AC.
June 20th, 2008 at 6:25 am
Hi!
awsome,thanks,i moved all my contacts and e-mails to my new e-mail @ymail.com ,and it’s great.
thanks
June 20th, 2008 at 7:19 am
Please tell us that there’s news on IMAP from upstairs/down the hall. I am so jealous of people who have IMAP because of how convenient it is to have everything synched up.
June 20th, 2008 at 7:30 am
I signed up for 4 new emails for family members. I received the activate email and did what it said. The process looked the same for all.
Then I went to use my new emails. 2 worked fine and 2 gave me “Invalid ID or password.
Please try again using your full Yahoo! ID.”
I have been asking around and this seems to be happening a lot. Any ideas?