{"id":81720,"date":"2024-09-05T17:28:22","date_gmt":"2024-09-05T17:28:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mailrelay.com\/glossary\/yahoo-mail\/"},"modified":"2026-10-07T17:43:19","modified_gmt":"2026-10-07T17:43:19","slug":"yahoo-mail","status":"publish","type":"glossary","link":"https:\/\/mailrelay.com\/en\/glossary\/yahoo-mail\/","title":{"rendered":"Yahoo Mail"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Yahoo Mail is Yahoo’s free email service.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

It has been around since 1997, and you can use it in your browser, at mail.yahoo.com, or in its Android and iOS apps.<\/p>\n\n

Today it offers 20 GB of free storage and a paid, ad-free plan.<\/p>\n\n

What is Yahoo Mail and what is it for?<\/h2>\n\n

Yahoo Mail lets you send, receive and organize emails, like any other email service<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n

It also stores your contacts, has a calendar and automatically filters out spam<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n

It was launched on October 8, 1997.<\/p>\n\n

That year, Yahoo bought the company Four11 and its webmail service RocketMail for about $92 million in stock, and turned it into Yahoo Mail.<\/p>\n\n

It was one of the big webmail<\/a> services of its time, alongside Hotmail<\/a>, and years later it competed with Gmail<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n

And what does Yahoo mean? The company was founded by Jerry Yang and David Filo in 1994, while they were students at Stanford.<\/p>\n\n

They themselves explained the name as a joke acronym, “Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle”, and as a nod to the Yahoos<\/em> in Gulliver’s Travels<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n

Since 2021, Yahoo has been owned by the investment firm Apollo Global Management, which bought it from Verizon.<\/p>\n\n

The latest official user figure dates from 2017: 225 million monthly active users.<\/p>\n\n

What does a Yahoo email address look like?<\/h2>\n\n

A Yahoo address takes the form username@yahoo.com<\/em>. The domain depends on when and where you created the account:<\/p>\n\n

Domain<\/th>Example<\/th>Can you choose it today?<\/th><\/tr><\/thead>
yahoo.com<\/td>firstname.lastname@yahoo.com<\/td>Yes, it’s the usual one for new accounts<\/td><\/tr>
myyahoo.com<\/td>firstname.lastname@myyahoo.com<\/td>Yes, as an alternative<\/td><\/tr>
yahoo.es and other country domains<\/td>firstname.lastname@yahoo.es<\/td>No, they are only kept on old accounts<\/td><\/tr>
ymail.com<\/td>firstname.lastname@ymail.com<\/td>No, old accounts only<\/td><\/tr>
rocketmail.com<\/td>firstname.lastname@rocketmail.com<\/td>No, old accounts only<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n

Does Ymail exist? Yes.<\/p>\n\n

@ymail.com addresses still work and are regular Yahoo Mail accounts, although you can no longer create new ones.<\/p>\n\n

You’ll find more details on the format of any email address<\/a> in our glossary.<\/p>\n\n

Yahoo Mail features<\/h2>\n\n

These are Yahoo Mail’s main features in 2026:<\/p>\n\n

Feature<\/th>What it offers<\/th><\/tr><\/thead>
Free storage<\/td>20 GB since August 27, 2025. It used to be 1 TB<\/td><\/tr>
Yahoo Mail Plus<\/td>$5 a month: 200 GB, no ads, automatic forwarding and 24\/7 support<\/td><\/tr>
Spam filter<\/td>Sends suspicious messages to the spam folder, with automatic antispam filters<\/a><\/td><\/tr>
Disposable addresses<\/td>With Yahoo Mail Plus, up to 500 temporary addresses<\/a> to sign up on websites without giving out your main one<\/td><\/tr>
Artificial intelligence<\/td>Automatic email summaries and a catch-up view, added in 2024 and 2025 and available in some countries<\/td><\/tr>
Access from other programs<\/td>IMAP<\/a>, POP3<\/a> and SMTP<\/a>, with an app password<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n
\"Free<\/figure>\n\n

Watch out for the storage change.<\/p>\n\n

If your free mailbox goes over 20 GB, Yahoo asks you to delete emails or pay for more space to keep sending and receiving.<\/p>\n\n

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Do you send campaigns to Yahoo addresses?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

With Mailrelay, your emails go out authenticated from your own domain. The free account includes 80,000 emails a month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Create a free account<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n

Advantages and disadvantages of Yahoo Mail<\/h2>\n\n

It’s a good option for personal email. But it has limits worth knowing about:<\/p>\n\n

Advantages<\/th>Disadvantages<\/th><\/tr><\/thead>
It’s free and easy to use<\/td>The free version shows ads<\/td><\/tr>
20 GB just for email<\/td>Free storage dropped from 1 TB to 20 GB in 2025<\/td><\/tr>
You can connect it to Outlook or your phone’s mail app via IMAP<\/td>Automatic forwarding is only available in Yahoo Mail Plus<\/td><\/tr>
It works on the web, on mobile and in other email programs<\/td>Accounts not signed into for 12 months are deactivated and their content is deleted<\/td><\/tr>
Interface available in English<\/td>It still carries the bad reputation from the 2013 and 2014 security breaches<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n

If you use it for your business, consider a corporate email<\/a> with your own domain.<\/p>\n\n

It inspires more trust and doesn’t depend on a free provider’s policies.<\/p>\n\n

Yahoo Mail and email marketing<\/h2>\n\n

Many subscriber lists include Yahoo addresses, so it’s worth knowing what Yahoo requires from senders.<\/p>\n\n

Since February 2024, Yahoo has applied these sender requirements<\/a>:<\/p>\n\n