Yahoo Mail (beta)

Reviewed by

Elsa Wenzel

on 09/21/2005

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Yahoo Mail lets you drag and drop e-mail messages into folders, and the built-in RSS reader lets you arrange incoming news the same way. Plus, you can select a story from a newsfeed and instantly post it to your Yahoo 360 blog.

We had almost given up on our old-style Yahoo Mail account, letting thousands of unread messages pile up. But since we've been using the new drag-and-drop feature and message flagging, it's been easier to organize that forgotten content. The new search within the Yahoo Mail beta, accessible through the upper-left corner of the interface, even inspects the text within message attachments. The Yahoo Calendar is now integrated within the Yahoo Mail beta, so you can view and add events and meetings just below the in-box. And the spelling checker works for 17 languages.

Yahoo is slowly rolling out integrated chatting, which Gmail already offers, so eventually you won't have to leave the page to send an instant message to other users of Yahoo Mail. (In addition, you can access from any browser.)

Downside: Users who are happy with their classic Yahoo Mail may dislike the drastic changes, but you can freely alternate between the new and old styles. The Yahoo Mail beta is noticeably faster than other Web-based e-mail services. Also, unless you constantly click on the in-box, new messages automatically appear only every 10 minutes. Unlike Microsoft Outlook, you can't create nested subfolders. And unfortunately, we still receive several spam messages daily that Yahoo's junk filters don't catch. Still, the ground-up renovation of Yahoo Mail is a radical step up from the click-by-click experience of the classic Yahoo Mail.

You can view and add appointments from Yahoo Calendar directly below the message pane of Yahoo Mail beta.

Outlook: The makeover of Yahoo Mail beta should make disgruntled Yahoo users think twice about switching to another service. Graceful, swift, and respectful of your privacy, Yahoo Mail makes a gracious e-mail host. Privacy advocates worried about Gmail poking its nose into the content of your messages for targeted advertising will appreciate Yahoo's hands-off approach. Against Yahoo Mail, Gmail looks intrusive. Desktop e-mail providers may also worry about losing customers.

We wonder if the final release of the updated Yahoo Mail might further integrate with other Yahoo services, such as mapping and photo sharing, or with Yahoo Instant Messenger with Voice. See our Yahoo Mail beta slide show for pictures of the early beta interface.