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

Like many of you, I am an active Facebook user and have been using many of the Facebook-related features we’ve added to Yahoo! Mail since we announced our plans to integrate Facebook more deeply across all of Yahoo! last December.

Specifically, in Yahoo! Mail we’ve enabled you to import Facebook friends email addresses into Yahoo!, made it simple to post your Facebook status from Yahoo! Mail, and more. Today I’m thrilled to announce another new integration launching to all users* that enables you to view, comment, and like your Facebook news feed items – all right from Yahoo! Mail.

Facebook activity from your friends will now appear in your Updates section, alongside your friends’ activity on Yahoo!, Twitter, Flickr and so on. Now you can get all your Updates in one place, right when you log in to Yahoo! Mail.

Just like on Facebook, you can Comment or Like a news feed item right from Yahoo! Mail…

…and of course, the comment goes back to Facebook so others can see it right away.

We also know that you have different friends on Yahoo! and Facebook, and seeing all their Updates in one place may not be ideal. No problem. By default, we show both Yahoo! and Facebook items intermingled, but you can filter – All Updates, only Yahoo!, only Facebook – by clicking on that tab. Not only that, regardless of what tab you are on, anytime you get a new update on Yahoo! or Facebook, you get notified via a “Show new Updates” link without having to refresh your browser.

So there you have it – one-stop updates from across Yahoo! and Facebook, right on Yahoo! Mail, with more to come across the broader Yahoo! network soon. We hope this feature helps you easily stay in touch with the people who matter most to you. Please let us know what you think!

* = (To activate all Facebook features, you first must link your Facebook account if you have not done so already. It’s super simple! Here’s how).

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Independent empirical studies done by the prestigious Fraunhofer Institute show that Yahoo! Mail is #1 in blocking malware and spam from reaching mailboxes.

We, at Yahoo! are proud about putting technology to work for our users. Under the hood, a complex system of spam filters is combing every mail coming into the system for spam signals and automatically detecting the spammers’ next steps. Every spam report counts and tells a little more about how to counteract unwanted email.

Spammers use every trick in the book to distribute millions of spam and scam emails every day – but with Yahoo! Mail, most of these messages are stopped even before they get to our users. In fact, unlike our competitors’ antispam systems, our filters flag or block greater than 99% of spam. With nearly 300 million Yahoo! Mail users worldwide, we are blocking over 120 billion spam messages every month. That’s an average of 400 blocked spam messages per Yahoo! Mail inbox per month.

And we are not the only ones who have noticed our spam-reduction efforts.

The Fraunhofer Institute, an independent research firm, found that Yahoo! Mail users saw the least amount of spam out of the five providers tested, with nearly 40% less spam than Hotmail and 55% less spam than Gmail – meaning Gmail users in the study saw more than twice as much spam as Yahoo! Mail users.

While it’s great to lead the industry with our efforts, it is just as important for us to work together to win the war against spam. As we push forward with our collaboration with anti-spam industry partners, and advance our technology efforts, we’ll continue to arm you with tools, tips and strategies to keep your inbox away from spam, phishing and online scams.

And, as always, keep reporting spam so we can make our engines work even harder to keep your inbox clean.

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The usage of the “Updates” feature is a personal choice really.

Thanks to the “Updates” within Yahoo! Mail, my family and my friends can follow a piece of my actions and discoveries on the Internet (only what I’m willing to share obviously). My entourage can actually keep an eye on a part of my day-to-day online life.It generates discussion between us, that’s cool. But sometimes we don’t want to share some of those things with everyone and some people are just not willing to share anything online. Both choices are understandable and Yahoo! has no intention of dictating your choice.  We allow you to manage what you share and with whom.

The page “Manage Updates” on your Yahoo! Profile lets you control what you’re sharing and with whom.

- Go to your Yahoo! Profile (profiles.yahoo.com)
- On your profile, click on ”Updates” and then Manage My Updates

On this page, you can  control who you’re sharing each type of Update with. For instance, you can decide to share your Flickr pictures only with your “Connections” (friends & family), the article you publish on your blog with everyone and not to share any video you add on YouTube.

It’s just as you wish, you own it all.

You can also access this page using the direct URL:
http://profiles.yahoo.com/settings/updates/

If you don’t want to share any Updates

It’s fairly easy to deactivate them in the Yahoo! Mail’s Options.

- Click on “Options” and then “More Options”
- Deselect “Enable Updates”

Have a great weekend,

Gregory talon
Product Manager

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Disposable Email Addresses in Yahoo! Mail (you might also know them as Addressguard) are a great way to help keep your Inbox free from spam. They are email addresses that you create and give out if you don’t want to give out your primary email address. Messages to your disposable email addresses are delivered to your Inbox or a folder you choose, and you can simply delete them if they start to receive spam.

If you’re like me and you use Disposable Email Addresses in the fight against spam, then I want to let you know about some upcoming changes to your Disposable Email Addresses. First of all, you probably know to look for the Disposable Email Addresses in the Spam section of Yahoo! Mail Options (click the ‘Options’ link in the top of your Inbox and then click ‘More Options’ or ‘Mail Options’). Soon, we are giving ‘Disposable Email Addresses’ its very own place on the Mail Options Screen. Let’s have a look:

(Please note: If you don’t see ‘Disposable Email Addresses’ as an option in the left-hand menu, you will need to sign up from the ‘Spam’ section of Mail Options.) Creating a Disposable Email Address is really very easy. Just click the ‘Add Address’ button at the top of the screen and an easy to follow wizard will walk you through creating your Disposable Email Addresses.

There are a few other changes as well. So let’s walk through each of them:

1. Changes to ‘Spamguard’ settings: In the current version of Disposable Email Addresses – I’m going to abbreviate them to DEA’s now – you have the option of choosing whether you want to turn the ‘Spamguard’ setting on for each individual DEA. With the upcoming changes, all DEA’s will take the Spamguard setting that you have set up in the Spam section of your Yahoo! Mail Options. That means you have will have one global Spamguard setting for your entire Mailbox and you can control it from one central location. How’s that for easy?
2. Changes to the delivery options: Now, when you set up a DEA, you have an option to move messages addressed to your DEA to your Inbox or any personal folder that you’ve created. With the new DEA’s you can still do that, but now you will have to use a filter. After you create your DEA, just click the link ‘Manage Filters for Disposable Addresses’. That link will take you to the ‘Filters’ section of Yahoo! Mail Options. Create a new filter, then just put your newly created DEA in the ‘recipient’ field and select the folder you want it delivered to. (Please note: as a consequence of this change you will have to set up new filters for your current Disposable Email Addresses.)
3. Changes to the ‘Sending Mail’ option: Our current DEA creation lets you pick an option to send email from a DEA. With the new version of Disposable Email Addresses you will now have the option of sending mail from all of the DEA’s you create. When you compose a new mail, you can find all your DEA’s in the ‘From:’ pick-list.

These changes to your have already begun to roll-out to Yahoo! Mail Users. If you don’t see these changes in your Yahoo! Mail Options right now, they should be showing up soon. If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to contact our Customer Care team.

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Apps in Mail let you activate all sorts of additional features that enhance your experience …. Today I want to introduce you to Fontself, an application that allows you to add something special to your emails. To tell you all about it is Fernando Saturno, Director of Product for Fontself.
Enjoy, Andrew – Yahoo! Mail Team
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We are really proud to announce that Fontself is now available in Yahoo! Mail. With the new Fontself application, now you can add a bit of color and style to your messages using a variety of original hand-drawn fonts and send eye-catching emails to your friends.

Just remembered it was your friend’s birthday? Want to let someone know how much you miss them? How about making the invite for your upcoming party a bit more memorable? Or even better, why not send a funky message to your friends just for fun?

With Fontself, you can always find a cool font that suits your mood and gives your email messages that very personal touch. Your personalized emails will not only stand out in a crowded inbox, but will surprise your friends and put a smile on their face.

Creating colorful emails using our original fonts is very easy. First, click on this link to take you to the Applications gallery where you can install the Fontself application. After, just launch the Fontself app from the Applications menu, select a font, type a message, click on “Create email” and voila! A new email gets created, and you can then add any other text or attachments to your illustrated message.

Be creative! Whether you are trying to impress your friends or getting your point across in a funny way, there are plenty of styles and colours to choose from in our growing library of free Fonts.

Below are samples from just of few of them:

Most of these fonts have their own set of smileys, so expect some interesting surprises to pop up as you type your messages. The whole list of smileys is here.

The Fontself application is currently available to all Yahoo! Mail UK users, and will be released in additional European countries very soon. And for those of you who are eager to start creating your own alphabets, we have some extra goodness coming your way soon… so, stay tuned!

Fernando Saturno – Fontself

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