Yahoo Mail: Is it Still Relevant in 2023? How AI and Completion Are Helping It Reinvent Itself

In today’s times, emails are a very important source of communication. Whether it is work, social engagements, friends, family, or anyone else, staying connected with people near or afar becomes way more convenient by emailing. There are tons of email options in the market but some like Yahoo Mail, Gmail, and Outlook Mail are the most widely used. Yahoo Mail is one of the oldest emailing platforms to have existed. I remember using Yahoo Mail way back when I was in school and this was in 2010-2012. At that time, emailing was something very limited people did.

With time, Yahoo Mail too doesn’t want to fade into oblivion and this is the reason the platform has been adding new features almost every year. Since 2023 is about Generative AI and Machine Learning, Yahoo Mail has added some AI features to stand the test of time. Not only this, but the platform also comes with various settings on Android devices that make it even more interesting to use. Yahoo Mail has a subscription plan too that makes its usage better. In this writeup, we will talk about all these things, but before doing that let’s have a quick look at what Yahoo Mail is and how it came into being.

Yahoo Mail: What exactly is it?

Yahoo Mail is a web-based email app that can be accessed on desktops as well as mobile devices. The app includes document and image storage, travel confirmations, package delivery tracking, and much more. The app allows users to customize and personalize their experience and doesn’t take up much space on your mobile devices.

It currently has 10,00,00,000+ downloads and a rating of 4.6 out of 5 on Google Play Store. It works on iOS devices as well.

History of Yahoo Mail

Yahoo Mail was launched in 1997 with the aim of offering a free, web-based email service to users. At that time, it was one of the first webmail services available. Until 2005 it was a basic email service with a very simple interface. It allowed attaching files to emails, spam protection, and more.

In 2005, Yahoo Mail went for its first major design overhaul, and new features were introduced like drag and drop functionality, increasing storage capacity to 1 GB, and more. Yahoo Mail Plus service (the first subscription that was launched) was introduced in 2005 but it took a while before it could be rolled out globally. Between 2006 and 2013 Yahoo Mail was integrated with other Yahoo Services like Yahoo Messenger, Yahoo Contacts, etc. In 2013-2014 Yahoo Mail faced a tough time when it suffered two major security breaches that exposed the personal information of millions of its users. This led to a lack of trust among users for Yahoo Mail.

It got a new lease of life in 2017 when Yahoo was acquired by Verizon for 4.48 billion dollars. Between 2017 and 2021 Yahoo Mail has undergone various redesigns and new updates to its interface and features. In fact, in 2023 it has even received AI features.

Before talking about AI capabilities and Android Settings, let us talk about Yahoo Mail Pro Subscription.

Yahoo Mail Pro Subscription

Yahoo Mail Pro subscription is a premium service Yahoo offers that has been designed to provide an enhanced email experience by offering a range of advanced features and benefits unavailable in the standard free version. With Yahoo Mail Pro, users can enjoy the following benefits-

• Inbox becomes ad-free for distraction-free emailing. In the standard version, there are various ads but this gets removed in the Pro version. The ads can be distracting at times and might not align with your interests. One can get a clutter-free inbox by opting for Yahoo Mail Pro.
• Storage capacity can be a concern when you receive loads of emails every day, that too with attachments and documents. Yahoo Mail Pro offers larger email storage capacity so you don’t have to worry about deleting old emails to receive new ones.
• Timely assistance when you need it is very important nowadays. Yahoo Mail Pro subscribers get priority customer support benefits so you get expedited assistance if you have any issues or questions.
• Yahoo Mail Pro takes the security and privacy of your mail very seriously. It comes with advanced features and encryption protocols that safeguard your emails and personal information against cyber threats.
• It offers a user-friendly interface that makes email management a breeze. One can easily organize their mailbox, categorize mail, and set up filters for priority messages.
• Yahoo Mail Pro allows you to create a customized email address to enhance your brand identity and credibility. It can reflect your brand or personal identity.

Cost of Yahoo Mail Pro Subscription

In India, Yahoo Mail Pro costs Rs. 65 per month. Payment can be made via all the methods that Google accepts. The subscription can be canceled anytime you don’t want it.

My Experience With Yahoo Mail

Being a 90s kid, Yahoo Mail was my first encounter with writing letters on a computer. It was in the year 2007 and I was in class 7^th when we first installed a Computer at our home. Internet in those days was supported by modems and loads of wires and getting a BSNL broadband connection felt like a win. The speeds were dicey and it took hours to load a page but the efforts never faltered as the thrill of writing to friends on the computer and receiving their replies paled everything else. Communicating via email was fun and Yahoo Mail made the experience even more seamless as it was easy to use and manage. Like myself, Yahoo Mail has been a source of first-ever email id for many 90s kids. Even today I have the same Yahoo ID I created in 2007 and if not much, the Yahoo Mail app still lies in my smartphone for nostalgia purposes.

Yahoo Mail: New AI Features rolled out in 2023

1. Yahoo has announced a new AI-enabled “Shopping Saver” feature for the mail app. This feature allows you to keep track of unused gift cards, vouchers, and store credit lying in your inbox and thus allows you to save money.

2. Yahoo has also announced expanding its AI beta experience for Yahoo Mail.

3. The Search Bar is becoming more intuitive. It won’t ask for keywords and users will now be able to ask their inbox direct questions about their old emails as if they were using a typical search engine. You can keep track of how much you spent on food, travel, grocery, etc. last week.

3. Yahoo Mail has also received a writing assistant. The assistant can draft suggested replies written in your voice, identifying appropriate tones via context clues from existing email chains to best suit the conversation. There will be more tones available so user can choose their desired tone like urgent, grateful, or apologetic. It is like ChatGPT for email.

4. There is a Message Summary feature as well. It gives users high-level summaries of messages. These will highlight key information like dates, times, and action items.

Yahoo Mail Android Application Key Settings

All these options will be found in the Settings Menu on the app. To go to the Settings menu, tap on your Profile picture in the top-left corner, and then tap on ‘Settings’ to open the menu.

• Manage Account– Using this option you will be able to edit the way you access your account and edit your profile. You can add/remove accounts and choose the QR Code as a sign-in option as well.
• Manage Mailboxes- Yahoo Mail helps you manage all your email accounts in just a few clicks. You can add your 3^rd party email accounts like Gmail, Outlook, or AOL to your Yahoo Mail account and make it your primary destination to send and receive emails.
• Connect Services– This option allows you to link your LinkedIn, Dropbox, and Google Drive accounts to Yahoo Mail for better storage capacity.

• Security– You can turn on/off automatic updates to the account and set a PIN/Password/ Pattern/Fingerprint to secure your account better.
• Customize– Using this option, you can customize orders or filters for attachments, starred messages, unread emails, or emails from people.
• Themes– Themes option allows you to change the color of your mail account. It gives a new look to your Yahoo mail experience.

• Match Device’s Theme Settings– Toggling this option to enable will automatically switch between light and dark mode according to device settings.
• Swipe actions- You can control the way you delete or mark emails as read using this feature. One can swipe right to mark as read and swipe left to delete an option.

• Message Preview– Using this option, you can choose how a message is displayed in your inbox. It can be no preview or it can be up to a 3-line preview depending on your needs.

• Conversations- Enabling this feature will group your emails by subject leading to a more organized inbox.
• Notifications- Choose what you want to receive notifications for. It can be all messages and features/ just the messages of a specific category or none.
• Signatures- The signature is a line that is displayed at the end of the emails you send. By default, the signature is ‘Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android’. However, you can change the signature to whatever you want and even customize it for each account.

• Reply-to-address– There are times when you use one email ID to send emails and want to receive replies on another email ID. This option allows you to receive replies to your emails at a different email address.
• Filters- This allows you to deliver messages to specific folders.
• Block Images- Don’t want to see images in emails you receive. You can block/hide them by enabling this option.
• Block Unwanted Sender Domains– This will allow you to stop receiving emails from sources you are no longer interested in. This feature is available for Pro members only.

There are other options like clear cache, allow undo-send, get Yahoo Mail Pro and more in the Settings Menu.

Good Things about Yahoo Mail

1. Yahoo Mail has a very easy-to-use interface and even beginners can use it without little or no help.
2. Yahoo Mail includes an advanced search engine.
3. Yahoo Mail comes with many customization options to manage your mailbox.
4. It has a storage capacity of 1 TB.
5. You can attach large files as it has the ability to attach files up to 100MB.
6. There are many built-in features like Yahoo Messenger, Yahoo Contacts, and more.

Limitations of Yahoo Mail

1. There are lots of ads in Yahoo Mail.
2. It doesn’t support online previews. You have to download the files to view them.
3. It doesn’t work the same in all browsers.
4. If you don’t use your mail account for more than 6 months, it gets inactivated.
5. Yahoo Mail has to control many pages so it is slower than other mail platforms sometimes.

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