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

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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