How to Yahoo Mail Works - Part-I

A world without the convenience of e-mail is hard to imagine -- which may explain, in part, why millions of us have turned to Yahoo Mail and other free Web-based e-mail services for fast communications. While AOL, Prodigy and CompuServe came earlier, Yahoo Inc. entered the field with Yahoo Mail in 1997 and has become a leader with an estimated 250 million users worldwide [sources: Computerworld and Search Engine Journal].

© David Paul Morris/Getty Images
­Yahoo mail is one of the most popular free e-mail services.

No matter which e-mail service we use, many of us use it frequently. A March 2007 survey conducted by the Pew Internet and American Life Project indicated that 71 percent of U.S. adults use the Internet. Among those users, 91 percent send or read e-mail online, and 56 percent use e-mail every day. Looking at e-mails sent worldwide, technology research firm IDC estimated that nearly 97 billion e-mails would be sent daily in 2007 [source: IDC].
Check Yahoo Mail and what it offers, and you'll see a lot more than simply being able to send and receive e-mail messages. For starters, you can do that in 21 languages. A Yahoo Mail account also provides unlimited message storage, e-mail search, contact lists, personalization, spam blockers and virus scanning.
Launched in August 2007, the new version of Yahoo Mail allows users to choose how they want to communicate, switching among e-mail, chat and text-messaging options. This version also adds keyboard shortcuts, direct access through RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds to changing Web content and mobile access from Internet-equipped smartphones and PDAs.
In this article, we'll take a closer look at these and other features of Yahoo Mail and how to use them. First, let's see how easy setting up a Yahoo Mail account is.

Setting up a Yahoo Mail Account

Setting up a free Yahoo Mail account is easy, starting with a visit to the Yahoo Web site. Before you can sign into Yahoo Mail, though, you need to register by choosing a Yahoo ID for your e-mail account and providing the required information. Once you've done that, you're ready to complete the Yahoo Mail login and send your first e-mail. Here are some steps to getting started.

­Image courtesy of Yahoo
Setting up a Yahoo Mail account is easy.

1. Go to http://info.mail.yahoo.com/ and click on the "Sign up now" box.
2. If you don't already have a Yahoo account, sign up for a Yahoo ID. You'll be asked for your name, gender, country, ZIP code and e-mail address.
3. After that, you select an ID -- a name to use when you e-mail or send instant messages -- and a password to use when signing in. You'll also be asked to select a security question (like your pet's name) to be used for identification if you forget your password. Click acceptance of the service terms and privacy policy, and your account will be set up.
4. Now, you're ready to sign in. Go to http://mail.yahoo.com from most browsers to connect to the sign-in screen page. Just enter your Yahoo ID name and password, hit the "Sign In" button, and you'll be signed in at your mail home page.
5. Below the "Sign In" area is a box you can click to remain signed in for two weeks. This reduces the number of times you need to sign in, but for security purposes, don't check this if you're working on a shared computer.
6. Forgot your ID or password? If so, click on the statement below the "Sign In" button. After you answer some questions to verify your identity, you'll be sent your ID by e-mail or given the option of selecting a new password.
7. To sign out when you're done, just click on the words "sign out" near the upper right of the screen page.

Getting to Know the Home Page

Before you send your first e-mail, let's look around the Mail home page for Yahoo Mail. (This is the version that rolled out in August 2007. The older version, now called Mail Classic, had a slightly different setup and fewer features.)
You'll see two boxes on the left side of the home page. The smaller, top box has a "Check Mail" button (to see your new mail), a "New" button with drop-down menus (to compose and send e-mails and text messages, and to chat with friends) and "Search Mail" (to hunt through folders for messages or specific text in them).
The bigger, lower box contains various icons that let you access mail folders, your contacts, a personal calendar and a notepad, as well as add and view RSS feeds (to see the latest content from blogs, online news sources and other Web sites you visit regularly) [source: What is RSS?].
At the top and middle of the page near your Yahoo ID, you can select your status for instant messaging with Yahoo Messenger, switch to Mail Classic, view or change your account settings at the Member Center, or sign out.
The strip below that shows the number of your new, unread e-mails and your local weather. Below that is a panel with updated news and other information, and events from your calendar appear at the bottom of the page. Above the weather at the far right, you'll find drop-down menus to access mobile mail, mail options and help.
Next, let's see how you can send and receive e-mails.

Basics of Using Yahoo Mail

The basics of using Yahoo Mail include, of course, sending and receiving messages. But Yahoo Mail basics also include formatting e-mail messages, handling attachments, and saving, storing and deleting e-mail messages. You'll see that's all fairly easy to do.

Formatting and Sending a Message

To send a message, start by clicking "New" in the upper left of your home page. Then click "E-mail Message," and a new screen will open. Here's how to compose your message.

1. Type your contact's e-mail address after "To:" If you're sending the e-mail to more than one person, put a comma and space after each name except the last one.
2. Use the "Cc:" line to add the addresses of anyone who should receive a copy of the e-mail. Click on the letters "Show BCC" at the end of the "To" line to add for names of people who will receive the message without the rest knowing or seeing their e-mail addresses.
3. After "Subject," write a few words that describe your e-mail topic. To reach someone you don't know well, be very specific ("Agenda for HR meeting 2-21," "Thursday's U-12 soccer game") so that the e-mail doesn't look like spam.
4. Type your message in the large Compose window. You can use elements from the bar below the subject line to format the message with choices such typeface, size and color, or adding links or emoticons (faces made of type that show emotions).
5. Check the spelling by clicking "Spelling" on the bar above "To:," and hit "Send" to send your message. You'll get confirmation that the message was sent, and it'll automatically be saved in your Sent folder. By clicking "Save Draft," you can save a partially written message in your Draft folder to finish and send later. Clicking "Attach" allows you to add an attachment. We'll look at that process more closely on the next page.

Receiving, Responding and Saving

Yahoo Mail automatically checks for new mail every 10 minutes. You can tell you've received a message by the number in parentheses after your inbox icon. You also can set an alert in Yahoo Messenger to make a sound whenever a new e-mail arrives in Yahoo Mail. (Yahoo Messenger is free, but you need to download software and register. For more information, see "How Yahoo Messenger Works.")

Image courtesy of Yahoo
­Yahoo Mail allows users to select their screen view so they can preview messages.

Open the inbox, and you'll see your messages listed to the right with the most recent at the top. Unread messages will be in bold type. Above the list is a control bar you can use to take action on each e-mail. You can click on:

• The message subject or sender to open and read the message. The message will appear in the reading pane below your message list.
• "Reply" to respond, choosing to respond to just the sender or to all.
• "Forward" to send a copy of the message and any attachments to someone else.
• "Spam" to send the message to your folder of unwanted messages. (We'll talk more about spam and security later in this article.)
• "Move" to save the message to another folder you've set up.
• "Print" to print out the message.
• "Delete" to move the message to your Trash folder. You can retrieve messages from the Trash if you haven't emptied this folder yet.

Now that you've mastered the basics, let's take a look at Yahoo Mail's more advanced features, such as sending and receiving attachments, storing and searching messages and accessing your e-mail away remotely.

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