Yahoo Mail is the email service provided by Yahoo. I started using Yahoo! Mail many years ago when I first started using the internet, it is the first email address I got.
It has since had a number of updates to it and will be describing the latest and current version of it in this review.
It's free to sign up from the yahoo.com homepage by clicking on the 'Mail' tab. Once registered and you sign in, this takes you straight to the inbox.
The Inbox has a simple layout with your mail inbox in the center of the page and several tabs on the left: 'Inbox', Drafts','Sent', 'Spam', 'Trash', 'Contacts', Calendar', 'Notepad' and 'Folders'.
'Drafts': If you start typing a message and decided to save it for later, it would be saved in this folder and you can return to this folder later and resume the draft and send the email.
'Spam' : This holds all emails that get sent to this folder once you indicate that they are 'spam' by selecting the option in the email once you open it in your inbox.
'Contacts': This is also your 'address book' and this holds all your email contacts that you can add manually by selecting the 'add contact' option or some are added after you send an email; when you send an email, you get an option that indicates that some of the contacts you have sent to are not in your inbox and you can add them that way. You can also create contact lists by using the 'add list' option in the folder.
'Calendar': You can use this to organise your daily events and tasks using the 'add event' and 'add task' options just like you'd do with your diary and this is handy as you can access it anywhere you have online access.
'Notepad' is just like your normal notepad in the accessories of your PC where you can type notes to refer to later or even add links you'd like to come back to later by using the 'add note' option and I guess this would be more handy if you're on the move a lot, I personally use it to add site links I'd like to check later say when I have more time or if I am at work and there's links I want to check when I get home.
'My Folders': This you can use to group your emails into folders by using the 'add' option; e.g I have folder names like 'Important' which I use to store all sign up passwords and user IDs for other sites I am on, 'Follow Up' and 'Payments' which I use to store all my email notifications of payments into my PayPal account. Helps you save time sifting through your inbox if you are in a hurry.
'Message Search': Yahoo Mail has a search tool at the top of the folders on the leftwhich you can use to search through your email folders just like you would in 'Outlook' and this again saves you time looking for particular emails among the many you may have in your folders.
To type a new message you click the option 'New' at the top too and this opens up a new window with a small tool bar which consists of the 'Send', 'Attach' for attachments, 'Save Draft', 'Spelling' for a spell-check in whatever language is on the drop-drown list and 'Cancel' options. There's another Word format toolbar at the bottom of the To:, Cc: and Subject: fields which you can use to format your email just like you would in MS Word with font style, size and colours, alignment, adding hyperlinks and there's also 'smiley faces'.
Yahoo Mail increased the amount of storage you could have about a year or so back and now you do not have to delete any emails from your inbox and that is one of the advantages. It is also simple to use - very user-friendly, easy to navigate, it's fast, you can send and receive attachments, there's the other features like the calendar and address book that come in handy and it is FREE!
One of the more noticeable disadvantages with Yahoo is the amount of junk/spam mail you receive and in comparison to my gmail account, I'd say a lot more spam goes through Yahoo mail.
Apr 26th, 2009
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