If you’ve been a long time Yahoo Mail user or if you’re thinking of switching to Yahoo Mail, this article outlining all of the new features in Yahoo Mail should help you decide.
A few years ago, if you told someone that you use Yahoo’s email service, you’d probably get laughed at. Yahoo Mail was starting to become about as archaic as America Online. And with all of the cool bells and whistles cropping up on more popular email services like Gmail or Outlook.com, you couldn’t really blame people for laughing.
If you haven’t used Yahoo Mail in a while here’s a look at the latest new features that are worth a second look. In fact, they might make you consider switching over.
New Yahoo Mail Features
There are a lot of new Yahoo Mail features, some rolled out in 2017 and others rolled out during the following years.
Theme and Layout
The most noticeable new front-facing change is you can update the theme and layout of your inbox. Under Setting you can choose from one of the light, medium or dark themes. You can also change the message layout and modify the inbox size and spacing of messages.
Calendar Integration
There is also better calendar integration with your email account. Quickly set up a meeting by selecting the calendar icon at the upper right of your inbox. Select the day and time where you want to set up the meeting, and select the Add More Details button.
In the event setup screen, just type the address of the people you want to invite to the meeting. You can also add any notes you want to include with the invite.
Select Save to finish.
You aren’t stuck using just the Yahoo calendar anymore either. You can integrate any external calendar service that has an iCal address. Like Google Calendar, for example.
While you’re in Yahoo Calendar view, select the settings gear icon next to Actions at the top of the calendar view. From the dropdown list, select Follow Other Calendars.
In the New Calendar window, name the calendar and paste the address in the iCal Address field.
Select Continue to finish.
Add Other Email Services
It’s not only other calendars you can integrate with Yahoo Mail. You can also add other email services.
To do that, select Settings in the upper right corner of the inbox. Then click on More Settings. In the Settings window, select Mailboxes from the left navigation pane.
Here, you’ll see an Add mailbox button under your yahoo email address.
All of these features make the experience of using Yahoo Mail a bit less isolated. And more like using an email service that has come up to speed with the rest of the world.
New Yahoo Mail Inbox Features
Of course, the features you’ll notice the most are the ones that enhance the inbox itself. And there are plenty.
The first worth noting is a new group of “Views” in the left navigation pane. Views are where you find the ways Yahoo has reorganized all of your emails.
Photos and Documents
Want to see all of the photos and document attachments in emails you’ve sent or received? Just select Photos or Documents.
This displays a collection of your photos or documents in one place. Now you don’t have to search for that email you sent with an attachment two years ago. All of the documents and photos are organized by date.
Grocery Deals
Selecting the Groceries options will display deals from grocery stores provided by Yahoo. Or, you can add your own grocery store membership details in this list.
Use the Select a store list to choose your favorite grocery store that you want coupons and deals from.
General Deals
Select Deals to see all of the promotional emails you’ve received with special deals that you may actually care about.
A lot of these deals get buried in your spam folder. On the flip side, many of these deals bury important emails you need to see, too. By categorizing emails it helps you focus on only what you care about.
Find Travel Confirmations
If you travel a lot, then you know how important travel confirmation emails are. They contain confirmation codes and actual tickets that you need when traveling for business or pleasure. They may also include reservation reminders for events. If you get a lot of messages daily, it’s easy for them to get buried.
Yahoo organizes these emails into the “Travel” category, which you can select in the left navigation column.
Deal With Spam
If you get a lot of spam messages from a shortlist of senders, you can easily stop them. Even if they don’t include an unsubscribe link in the message.
When you have the email open, just scroll to the bottom of the message. Select the three dots on the right of the “reply/forward” panel and select Block sender.
If you want to get rid of spam from multiple senders just select them in your inbox. At the top of the inbox, select the three dots and from the dropdown list, select Block senders.
Out of Office Reply Customization
One of the most touted new addition to Yahoo Mail is the ability to customize what your out of office reply looks like.
You can access this feature by selecting Settings > More Settings. Then choose Vacation response from the left navigation pane and toggle it on.
In the message area on the right, you can create your customized out of office message. Set the date for the message to be active. Change the font type and colors, insert a fun GIF if you like, and stationary.
It’s surprising that it took this long for Yahoo to provide the ability to create unique out of office replies. But at least it’s available now.
Yahoo Mail has Improved
Yahoo Mail has improved quite a bit in the past few years. If these new features look good to you, now is a great time to consider taking a second look. In keeping with the times, Yahoo Mail is offered on the web, and as a mobile app for both Android and iOS. However, the Yahoo Mail desktop app was discontinued in 2017.