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

Our goal is to make Yahoo! Mail the smartest communication tool on the web. Since our conversations often start while sharing what we do or like, Yahoo! Mail now allows you to share Updates about the things you do on the Web, with the people that you care about the most.

How do you share the things you do on your favourite sites – tweeting on Twitter, posting a video on Youtube, listening to music on Lastfm or uploading photos to Flickr – with your friends and family? You’ll see, it’s pretty simple.

1. Sharing Updates from Yahoo! sites (Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Buzz, Flickr, etc.)
You don’t have to do anything to share your Updates on Yahoo! sites.

Here is an example of an Update coming from a Yahoo! site:  Adding a picture on Flickr
Flickr is one of the world’s largest online photo sharing communities where people share their photos and personal video clips with friends, family and the world. I recently added a new picture to my Flickr account, and now Yahoo! posts a notification to my Yahoo! Profile and to the “What’s New” page of my contacts in Yahoo! Mail.

Here is what my account looks like after posting to Flickr

Here is what my connections see on their “What’s New” page.

2. Sharing Updates from other popular websites
Everyone has their own list of favourite sites. That’s why we offer you the ability to share your Updates from sites like YouTube, Twitter, Vimeo and many more with your friends using Yahoo! Mail. To start sharing, you need to link your favourite sites to your Yahoo! Account by going to the “Share More” section of your Yahoo! Profile.
http://profiles.yahoo.com/share_more/

From here you can select the sites you want to share Updates from and add them by providing your related user name.

Here’s an example of an Update from a non Yahoo! site: Publishing or adding a video to your favourites on YouTube.
When I’m not at my day job, I’m also a musician. So I have my own channel on YouTube where I publish my music videos or discover what’s upcoming like this single titled « Take It In » from Hot Chip (a Grammy-nominated British electropop band). So I added YouTube in the “Share More” section of my Yahoo! Profile. Now I can easily share all my discoveries with my connections.

Here is what my profile page looks like with the YouTube update

Here’s what it looks like on my connection’s ‘What’s New’ page

The list of sites that you can connect with your Yahoo! account:
You’ll find the complete list of sites that you can connect with your Yahoo! account on the “Share More” section of your profile. We are always updating the list of sites.
http://profiles.yahoo.com/share_more/

If you’re not ready to start sharing your Updates
Your privacy is very important to us.  So if you’re not interested in sharing Updates with your connections, you have the ability to turn them off.  Just click ‘Options’ at the top right of your Inbox and select ‘Mail Options’.  Then uncheck the box ‘Enable Connection-related features’ and click ‘Save Changes’.

Gregory Talon
Product Manager Yahoo! Mail

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I have some really exciting changes to share about the all-new Yahoo! Calendar that are based on the feedback you’ve been sharing with us. Your top request on our Yahoo! Calendar suggestion board was to make the Calendar open as a tab in the All-New version of Yahoo! Mail. Well, your wish is our command, and over the coming weeks we will begin to roll this change out to everyone.

You can see what it looks like below, but first I want to show some changes that are coming very soon. In fact, you may have already noticed the change in your calendar. The left hand column with the month, search and the calendar list is now an expandable tab just underneath the ‘Today’ button. Now, when you click the calendar icon, the tab expands to show the search and all of your calendars.

One of the main reasons behind this change is to free up some space so the calendar will fit nicely and neatly inside a tab in the All-New Yahoo! Mail. Now when you need to go to your calendar you’ll never need to leave your Inbox. Here’s what it will look like when it’s open in Yahoo! Mail:

Of course that’s not the only reason to use love the new Yahoo! Calendar. Here are some other reasons to love it:

• Calendar sharing
• Syncing your calendar with your iPhone or iPod touch over the air
• Multiple calendars (or layers) that you can hide or display
• A new search tool that lets you search your Calendar and Notepad
• A handy ‘right click’ menu to quickly add events and more

So when’s all this happening? The change with the expandable tab is rolling out now and you should be seeing it in the next few days. Adding the Calendar to a tab in the All-New mail will be coming soon after. You have to be using the All New Calender to get all these great features, so if you have not already switched to the new Yahoo! Calendar, you can do that here: http://switch.calendar.yahoo.com

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Here’s a reminder for all the fellas out there (like me); Don’t forget that Valentine’s Day is coming up this Sunday (that’s the 14th of February). And of course a big Happy Chinese New Year!! Seriously though, I had totally forgot until just the other day.

Don’t worry, you don’t have to go running around looking for chocolates, flowers or trying to score that 8pm dinner reservation. With the Yahoo! Greetings app in the all new mail, you can send a Valentine’s card without even leaving your Inbox.

Let’s give it a try. Just click on Yahoo! Greetings in the applications pane of your Inbox. If it’s not listed there, just click the little plus sign next to ‘Applications’ and you can add it to your list.

Once the application opens, you can find the right card to send. Select ‘love & dating ecard’ and click ‘go’ to see a list of possible Valentine’s cards. Scroll through the list of cards and click on the one that suits you. Fill in your details, give it the personal touch with your own message and then click send. That’s it, you’re done. Now you can go back to watching Sports Center highlights.

Flowers are great but emails are too, so send your love without the thorns. Be advised, I am still getting chocolates and flowers (I like to cover all the bases).

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It’s been over 12 years since Yahoo! Mail launched with just 3 Megabytes of storage. Fast forward to present day with unlimited storage, 25 Megabyte attachments, chat in mail, ‘drag and drop’ to name just a few enhancements we’ve added over the years. And to make sure you are getting the most out of Yahoo! Mail (and the rest of today’s modern Web-based applications) we suggest upgrading to a modern browser.

There are a host of modern browser options and they are all supported by Yahoo! Mail.

• Firefox 3.x +
• Microsoft Internet Explorer 8.x +
• Safari 3.0 +
• Google Chrome 4.0 +

Believe it or not, it’s been almost 10 years since Internet Explorer 6 was released, and 26% of Internet users are still using it. If you are still using an older browser, we will be encouraging you to upgrade to the latest version soon. We even have the latest versions of Internet Explorer and Firefox that give you an optimized, one-click access to Yahoo! Mail.

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