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Working With Contact Information

Managing a Contact’s DetailsRequesting a Contact’s DetailsSending Your Contact DetailsViewing a Contact’s ProfileDeleting a Contact

Managing a Contact’s Details

You can view contact details and modify them as often as necessary.

Note: Yahoo! Messenger and your Yahoo! Contacts are integrated and synchronized. When you modify contact information in one application, you’re modifying the same contact information in the other application as well.

Yahoo! Messenger provides a variety of ways for you to communicate with anyone who is a Messenger user. Here are just a few of the ways you and your friends can communicate:

  • Instant message each other in real time—you need your friend’s Yahoo! ID or Windows Live™ Messenger ID.
  • Make calls from your computer—you need your friend’s Yahoo! ID.
  • Send emails back and forth—you need your friend’s email address.

To take full advantage of Yahoo! Messenger and allow for easy communication, add your friends to your Messenger List and Address Book as contacts and keep their contact details current, such as the contact’s ID, phone number, email address, and so on. Maintaining contact details ensures that you always have the most up-to-date communication information and allows you to contact the person from various places in Messenger, such as sending an SMS message from the person’s contact card, the Address Book, or through the IM window.

 

Here’s How

  1. View a contact’s details in one of the following ways:

    • In your Messenger List, move the cursor over a contact’s name, and click the More Contact Information button  button to show the rest of the contact details.

      Click the More Information button on the contact's card.

      Then click the View/Edit Contact Details link.

      Click View/Edit Contact Details.

    • Right-click a contact name and select Contact Details from the displayed menu.

    • In the Address Book, click a contact name, and then click the View/Edit Contact Details link.

      In the Address Book, double-click the contact's name.

      Tip: Alternatively, you can double-click the contact’s name.

    • In the IM window, select Contact Options > Contact Details from the Actions menu.

    The Contact Details window opens.

  2. Update information in any of the tabs, then click the Save & Close button.

    Enter contact information, then click the Save & Close button.Enlarge

 

What’s Next

You can update some contact information, such as phone numbers and email addresses, through smart tags found in instant messages. To learn more, see the Using Instant Messaging tutorial.

To quickly populate a contact’s details, request the information directly from the contact. When she sends them, you can let Messenger do the work of updating her information in your address book.

 

Help Topics

 
 

Words to Know

  • Contact: a person with whom you interact; someone to whom you might want to send an email or instant message.
  • Instant messaging: the ability to exchange messages in real time with other people over the Internet.
  • Messenger List: a list of coworkers, friends, family, and associates who also use Messenger.
  • PC-to-PC calling: the ability to call another person’s computer from your computer; similar to placing a phone call. Both you and the person you are calling must have a Yahoo! ID and be logged into Yahoo! Messenger.
  • Smart tag: information, such as a phone number or email address, found in an instant message and underscored for your use. Clicking a smart tag allows you to act on the information, such as sending a text message to a mobile phone number, sending an email to an email address, or adding the information to your address book.
  • Synchronize: to cause items in multiple locations to match exactly.
  • Windows Live™ Messenger: Microsoft® Windows’ free instant messaging application.
  • Yahoo! ID: the name by which a person is known to all Yahoo! networks.