Yahoo! Mail Tutorials

Glossary

A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | XYZ

A

  • AddressGuard: a feature of Yahoo! Mail Plus that allows you to create and use disposable email addresses.
  • Article: a summary of web content from an RSS feed along with a link to the full version of the document.
  • Ascending order: from smallest to largest; for alphabetical sorting, from A to Z; for date sorting, from oldest to most recent.
  • Attachment: a separate file included as part of an email message; for example, a multimedia or document file.
  • Avatar: a character that you can use when interacting with friends online. By changing hairstyles, clothes, accessories, and backgrounds, you can create your own unique persona.

B

  • Base name: the first part of your disposable address, which is common to all the addresses you create using AddressGuard.
  • Bcc: short for "blind carbon copy"; an email address in this field won’t be visible to any other recipients of the message.
  • Blocked address: an email address or domain from which you never want to receive messages.

C

  • Case-sensitive: lower and uppercase letters are not treated the same; for example, "a" is not the same as "A".
  • Category: a group of contacts in your Yahoo! Address Book. Categories let you send the same email to a group of people and let you organize information by groups.
  • Cc: short for "carbon copy"; use this field to add secondary recipients to an email message.
  • Cleaning: removing a virus or other infection from your computer.
  • Compose: to enter the text of an email message.
  • Condition: the part of a filter that defines what constitutes a matching message.
  • Contact: a person with whom you interact; someone to whom you might want to send an email, instant message, or text message.

D

  • Descending order: from largest to smallest; for alphabetical sorting, from Z to A; for date sorting, from most recent to oldest.
  • Disposable email address: a customized email address that you create using AddressGuard to protect your regular Yahoo! Mail Plus address.
  • Distribution list: a group of contacts to whom you want to send the same email message.
  • Domain: a set of Internet addresses, such as for a web site or email. On the Web, a domain is the part after "www." such as "my-domain.com".
  • Download: to transfer a file from a remote computer to your computer.
  • Draft: an unfinished version of an email message that you save in the Drafts folder to complete and send at a later time.

E

  • Email address: A contact’s address that identifies an electronic location where email can be sent. An email address includes the contact’s email name followed by the "@" followed by the contact’s email domain, such as "person@domain.com".
  • Email domain: a set of Internet addresses, such as for a web site or email. In email addresses, a domain is the part after the "@", such as "my-domain.com".
  • Emoticon: a small character that shows someone how you feel during an IM conversation, such as happy, sad, or laughing.
  • External email account: an email account that uses a mail server other than the Yahoo! Mail server.

F

  • Feed: an XML file used to deliver documents or other content using RSS.
  • Filter: a set of rules that Yahoo! Mail uses to direct an incoming message to a particular folder.
  • Folder: a container that holds individual elements specific to the context; for example, email messages in Yahoo! Mail.
  • Forward: (two uses in Yahoo! Mail) to send an email message that you receive on to someone else or to configure Yahoo! Mail to send all email messages that come into your Yahoo! Mail account to another email address.

I

  • Inbox: a folder where you receive incoming email.
  • Inline reply: when you type your reply to a message between the lines of text in the original message.
  • Instant messaging: the ability to exchange messages in real time with other people over the Internet.

J

  • Junk mail: unsolicited email on the Internet; also called spam.

K

  • Keyword: the unique, second part of a disposable address you create using AddressGuard.

L

  • List: a group of contacts to whom you want to send the same email message.

M

  • Mail server: an application that receives incoming email and forwards outgoing email for delivery. A computer dedicated to running such applications is also called a mail server.
  • Messenger ID: the Yahoo! ID a person uses to sign in and use Yahoo! Messenger.
  • Messenger List: a list of coworkers, friends, family, and associates who also use Messenger.
  • Mobile device: a wireless communication device for exchanging voice, text, and/or graphic information; includes pagers, mobile phones, web phones, pagers, two-way pagers, PDAs, and Internet appliances.

N

  • New message tab: a tab in Yahoo! Mail where you address, write, and send a new email, chat, or text message.
  • Nickname: a shortcut to a person’s email address.

O

  • Offline: not connected to the Internet or any other network.
  • Online: connected to the Internet.
  • Online contact: a contact with a Messenger ID who is signed in at the same time you are.
  • Online status: a setting that lets others know your availability to chat.

P

  • Permanent folder: a mail folder that is automatically created in a Yahoo! Mail account and can’t be deleted.
  • Personal folder: a mail folder that the user created.
  • Plain text: text that has no formatting defined; how this text appears (for example, its size) depends on the web browser or email application that you use.
  • POP3: Post Office Protocol 3, a standard client/server protocol for receiving email in which a mail server receives and holds email messages for you.

R

  • Reply: to respond to an email message you received.
  • Rich text: a format that lets you change font style, add color, and more in your outgoing message text.
  • RSS: a standard distribution format that web sites and blogs can use to send updated headlines to users through a service like Yahoo!. (The acronym is commonly expanded to Really Simple Syndication.)

S

  • Scan: the process of checking files to see if they contain known viruses.
  • Snippet: a couple of lines of text from the message body.
  • Spam: unsolicited email on the Internet; also called "junk mail".
  • Spam folder: a permanent folder that SpamGuard or SpamGuard Plus uses to hold messages it considers spam.
  • Spammer: someone who sends spam.
  • Stationery: a predefined format that you can apply to an outgoing message text, including a background image or color and a specific font.

T

  • Text messaging: sending and receiving written messages on a variety of devices via "short message service" (SMS).
  • Thumbnail: a small version of an image, often linked to a larger version.
  • Training history: the information that SpamGuard Plus collects about the messages that a user considers spam and not spam.
  • Trash folder: the folder into which Yahoo! Mail moves all deleted email messages.

U

  • URL: Universal Resource Locator; specifies the location of a file or web page, such as http://my.yahoo.com.

V

  • Virus: a computer program that attaches itself to other programs and causes harm to computer software, data, and/or hardware, often undetected until it is too late.

W

  • Web-based mail client: a program (usually a web site) that any computer with an Internet connection and a web browser can use to access the mail server.
  • Windows Live™ Messenger: Microsoft® Windows’ free instant messaging application.

XYZ

  • Yahoo! Contacts: a listing of people and their email addresses associated with each Yahoo! Mail account; also known as Address Book.
  • Yahoo! ID: the name by which a person is known to all Yahoo! networks.
  • Yahoo! Mail Plus: a fee-based, advertisement-free version of Yahoo! Mail that provides additional online protection features and control.
  • Yahoo! Messenger: an application that lets you communicate using your voice, text, or other means with one or more people over the Internet in real time (instantly).
  • Yahoo! Toolbar: a customizable toolbar that allows you to use your favorite Yahoo! features from buttons on your browser.