New release of Yahoo! beta mail rolling out

Posted May 31st 2006 2:15PM by Joe Beaulaurier

The Yahoo! Mail Team just posted to their blog to announce features Yahoo! Mail beta participants will see when the release rollout reaches their accounts.

First, this is a really great use of the Mail Team's blog given their past useless and infrequent posts. I send a big "Thank you" to whoever is behind this

. Second, they're letting users know about upcoming features now instead of waiting until the rollout is complete. This will go far to minimize beta participant frustration from not even knowing what to look for.

To summarize what is coming with this release:

Spellcheck will work in Firefox. Previously only available for IE users.
Support for IE7 beta. Previously you had to hoodwink things to make it work.
Speed improvements. It's already soooooo much faster then the original implementation.
Attachment sizes will be visible in preview pane and message header. Yea!
"My Folders" will be collapsible (just like "My Feeds").
New Contacts layout and a new way to build distribution lists.

Y! Mail beta release rollouts take weeks to reach all accounts. There's nothing to do to speed it up. But at least now you know what to look for!

Reader Comments

(Page 1)

1. Great upgrade, except for the addition of the completely useless "Home" tab that is now mandatory and the place you get dropped when you first log in. Just take me to my Inbox, please!

Posted at 3:58PM on May 31st 2006 by Jim

2. Previously I had problems switching the encoding of yahoo mail, hopfully they fixed that in this release.

Posted at 5:36PM on May 31st 2006 by Abdelhalim

3. haha this is funny. i'll never see yahoo mail beta. Yahoo told me 7 months ago that my beta was "coming soon." i got on the waiting list at least a month before that, too.

i've jumped ship. since last week i've been forwarding all my yahoo mail to Gmail... and it's working nicely.

Posted at 9:38AM on Jun 3rd 2006 by jon144k

4. I'm waiting for Yahoo to kill Mac support for Yahoo mail too. I'm not sure how they could do it with mail, but I'm sure they'll figure out a way. Probably just with a browser check in the html, blocking Safari users.

Yahoo chat? No mac support.
Yahoo's new homepage? No mac support.
Yahoo finance advanced features? No mac support.
Yahoo messenger? No mac support.
Yahoo music service and Launch? No mac support.
The list goes on and on.

Used to be AOL was McWeb. Now it's Yahoo catering to the lowest common denominator. And I do mean lowest.

Posted at 6:36PM on Jun 6th 2006 by rip

5. Ok, I'm usually not one to express my thoughts like this because why the hell would anyone care about what I have to say?

In any case, I can't contain myself - and I'm also bored at work. My "farm" was just updated to the newest version, and I love it. Yahoo is awesome. Yahoo Beta Mail is awesome. The spell checking feature is SO much better - with different languages too (speak spanish)!! This is an amazing product, and keeps getting better. I can't wait to see the FINAL version! Sure there are some things to tweak, but that's why they call it Beta Mail.

Posted at 9:52AM on Jun 9th 2006 by James

6. James: Thanks for your comment. There are many, like yourself, who glean a lot from the comments here. They hold the potential for indicating popular opinion - especially when a pattern of comments emerges and/or is refuted.

Thanks again and always feel free to leave comments. Thousands of silent visitors benefit when you do.

Posted at 2:29PM on Jun 11th 2006 by Joe Beaulaurier

El nombre Senna regresa a la Fórmula 1 ¿Como? SEGURIDAD: Ford inventa los cinturones bolsas de aire VIDEO: Boxster Spider, el nuevo miembro de la familia Porsche	The DIY Reel: Growing Herbs for Kitchen Decor Reduce Speeding on Your Street Daily DIY: How to Make a Pumpkin Facial Mask
Lizard Daisy Clutch, Handbag of the Day A Royal Billiards Table For Sale At Harrods Merlove DVD Released, Celebrated With Merlot Tasting	Six top trades for the rest of 2009 Earnings highlights: CBS, Comcast, News Corp., Time Warner, UBS, Viacom ... Trade #3: Market Vectors Gold Miners ETF (GDX)
Curtis Stone Wants to Cook You Dinner Editor's Picks - Best of the Rest Angostura Bitters Shortage Shakes Up Cocktail World	The Galavanting Girls help the children of Roatan Why the TSA insists on screening wheelchairs National parks free for Veterans Day!