Receiving Email Messages

Reading Messages

Yahoo! Mail stores email messages in mail folders. Initially, all of your incoming email messages arrive in your Inbox folder (except suspected spam, which goes directly into your Spam folder). To read a message, you simply display a mail folder and click a message line.

Display in new window

• What’s Next
• Learn More
• Help Topics

The folder list displays the number of unread messages in parentheses next to each folder name.

Click the Inbox link to display a list of your messages.

A list of the messages in your Inbox appears in the top portion of the Inbox tab.

Enlarge

The subjects of the messages give you an idea of what each one is about. To get the whole story, read your messages.

You’ve probably noticed the little icons scattered around your Inbox and in open email messages.

These icons appear in mail folders to indicate special characteristics of messages:

	You have replied to this email message.
	You have forwarded this email message.
	You flagged this email message for follow-up.
	This email message includes one or more attachments.
	This email message is from a CertifiedEmail™ sender.

When reading an email message, you might see these icons in the header:

	This person has a Yahoo! ID and is online. Click the icon to send the person an instant message using Yahoo! Messenger.
	This person has a Yahoo! ID but is offline.
	Verifies that the message is being sent from its claimed domain, such as "@yahoo.com".
	Click the icon to add this person to your Yahoo! Contacts.
	This person is in your Yahoo! Contacts. Click the icon to view the contact details for this person.
	If you have a text-enabled mobile phone or other mobile device, click the icon to set up Yahoo! Mail to send you a text alert whenever you receive a message from this person.
	This email message includes one or more attachments.
	This email message is from a CertifiedEmail™ sender.

Most of these icons appear automatically. The flag is the only icon that you apply to a message by marking it for follow-up.

(More Details)

Here’s How

To read a message in the Reading Pane:

1. To read an email message in the Reading Pane (the lower portion of the tab), single-click the message.  

   Enlarge

   Tip: You can read any message in your Inbox or other folder, regardless of whether it is bold text (indicating that it has not been read) or plain text (indicating that it has been read). Once you read a message either in the Reading Pane or on a message tab, the message line changes to non-bold text. 

2. You can change the height of the Reading Pane by dragging the bar above the pane up and down.

   

3. To read a different message, just click its subject in the list of messages.

   Tip: You can also use the up and down arrow keys on your computer keyboard to move from message to message in the message list.

To read a message in a separate tab:

1. To read an email message on a separate message tab, double-click the message in the list of messages.

   

   Yahoo! Mail lets you open multiple messages at the same time, each on a separate tab. You can easily switch from one message to another by selecting a different tab.

To change the font in plain text messages:

You can change the appearance of text in email messages you send and receive that use plain text. If a message you receive contains HTML code or rich text, you won’t be able to choose the font or the size of the text.

1. Click the Options link, then select Mail Options from the menu.

   

   The General options page opens.

2. Select a new default font and/or font size from the Plain text font pull-down menus.

   

3. Click the Save Changes button.

   

4. Click the Back to Mail button to return to Yahoo! Mail.

   

   The next time you display a plain text email message, it should appear in the new default font that you specified.

 

Take Me to Yahoo! Mail

Next:
Working With Shortcuts

What’s Next: Dealing With Spam and Attachments

You may receive unsolicited junk email, also called spam. or email messages with attachments—noted by the attachment icon — from people you don’t know. Both can be harmless. In fact, attachments are the way to go when you or others want to share documents and photos. But junk email, unless you requested it, can be annoying. And then there are the dreaded emails that carry viruses; these aren’t harmless. We have tutorials dedicated to both spam and attachments to help you use good judgment before opening and reading these emails.

• Working Safely With Email Attachments
• Protecting Yourself From Spam
• Using SpamGuard