| What Is... | Signing In to Chat | Sending a Text Message |
Your online chat availability determines whether you can send mobile text messages to your contacts. If you’re signed in to Yahoo! Mail’s chat feature (that is, online), you can initiate text messaging; if you’re signed out of chat (offline), you can’t.
If you’re signed out of chat, you’ll see "Offline" in the Chat & Mobile Text area of your main Mail page.

Just sign in to get started.
Tip: For text messaging, it doesn’t matter what your online status is,
as long as you’re signed in. You can be available (
),
busy (
),
or even invisible (
)
and still be able to send and receive text messages. See the Chatting With Your Contacts tutorial to learn more
about different chat statuses and how to create your own status messages.
To sign in to Yahoo! Mail’s chat feature, click the "Offline" status, and then select another status from the menu.

Your text messaging friends don’t see your online status, but your online Messenger contacts do.
Now that you’re signed in, you can send a mobile text message,