Chatting With Your Contacts
| What Is... | Being Available to Chat | Starting a Chat | Receiving a Chat Message | Switching Between Email and Chat | Turning Chat Off |
What Is Chat in the Yahoo! Mail?
Email is great. It’s much faster than snail mail, and you usually get a response sooner than later. But, have you ever been writing an email wishing that you could have instant communication with your contact without picking up the phone? You can with Yahoo! Mail’s chat feature. Chat lets you and your contact exchange messages in "real time", meaning "right now", and all while using Yahoo! Mail and without having to download an instant messenger application. (And it’s free!)
Picture this. You have an urgent question regarding flight times for this evening. The only way you can reach your friend is through email. While typing your message, you notice that your friend is online. Instead of sending the email, you convert your message into chat, ask your question, and receive an immediate response. No worries!
Your contact must have a Yahoo! ID or a Windows Live™ Messenger ID and must be signed in to either Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo! Messenger, or another compatible instant messaging program. 
So, let’s just repeat the highlights and get you chatting!
- Chat lets you communicate with your contacts in real time so that you receive instant replies.
- Use Yahoo! Mail chat without downloading additional software.
- Convert an email message or text message in progress to a chat message—and vice versa.
- Use chat to communicate with all of your Yahoo! and Windows Live contacts. All they need is to sign into Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo! Messenger, or another instant messaging program.
Note: Not all operating systems and browsers support chat. Click here for more information about system requirements for chat.
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What’s Next
All you have to do to start chatting is make yourself available to chat through your online status.
Tip: If you already use Yahoo! Messenger, you might want to know more about the differences between Messenger and chat. The If You Use Yahoo! Messenger tutorial has all the details.
Words to Know
- Contact: a person with whom you interact; someone to whom you might want to send an email, instant message, or text message.
- Instant messaging: the ability to exchange messages in real time with other people over the Internet.
- Mobile text messaging: sending and receiving written messages on a variety of devices via "short message service" (SMS).
- Windows Live™ Messenger: Microsoft® Windows’ free instant messaging application.
- Yahoo! ID: the name by which a person is known to all Yahoo! networks.
- 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).