Thursday, November 21, 2013

The New Yahoo Mail Sucks!


Now I Get It! Yahoo is Just Plain Smarter Than I Am

By Jeff Simpson

I use and think the new Yahoo mail system sucks.   So on a strictly personal level, h/t to Jan Hyatt, please sign the petition to fix it!


I love being the subject of ridicule. "You still use Yahoo Mail?" (said with a snicker and an eye roll). "My grandma called me to fix her Yahoo Mail!" (another snicker). I get it. I'm old. I don't like change. Technology evolves. Advertising revenue drives product design. And Yahoo knows better than I do how email works.

Sometimes I need to multi-task when I create an email - you know, open one email, cut text out of it and paste it into another, and leave both of them open. Apparently that's not an efficient way to work. Yahoo tells me that they "group messages together so you have fewer
reasons to switch between messages". Alrighty then! Guess I don't need to do that anymore.

Save a draft? To me, it makes sense to click the "Save" button, or the little floppy disk picture (I'm so old I remember what floppy disks are!). Yahoo says to just click the "X". X marks the spot! So what if every other software program I've ever seen uses X for cancel. So what if I'm afraid to click an X? Get with the program, Mom!

I keep my 10,000 emails in separate folders too. So if I ever want to find an old email (like the one I wrote in 2002 (don't laugh) telling Yahoo how much I love Yahoo Mail) I can just search for it. I search for "Yahoo", click on Sender and it sorts my list and I find my email. Well, apparently I don't appreciate the new Yahoo paradigm where I'm supposed to "click the magnifying glass icon in the message list" to find the sender. My kids tell me that's how it works on the iPhone so, whoops! My bad.

Get this! This new-fangled font that Yahoo uses is super-streamlined and
looks super modern. And on my super-cute puppy background (that I can't
figure out how to remove, must be hidden under an "X" somewhere) it all
blends together into one super-pleasing screen! Too bad my super-old
eyesight can't exactly make out what it says. Maybe I'll get lasik
surgery (I should anyway, so I don't look so OLD!).

And in the old days, some mundane tasks, like italicizing text and printing, seemed pretty important. Yahoo put them right on top of my message! Wellll, not anymore! Mundane is out. Not cool. Stop being an old fogey! Just click on all of the little "X"s and "+"s until you find the secret hidden place where these obsolete functions can be found. Done! Shoot that bad boy right out of here! Which leads to:

Judy, I am so sorry you saw that email that said you were an
"overly controlling, out of your mind b*tch". In the old days I would
have deleted your address from the email I responded to. I forgot that
"conversations" are the new way of communicating. We share everything
now! Still BFF! Right?


Cartoons by the inimitable Bob Cochran at http://frozenyaktreats.blogspot.com/.


And see our "Open Letter to Marissa Mayer" at http://yahoomailvoices.com

36 comments:

  1. i have gone to a new email fuck yahoo !!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. it wouldn't be so bad if the F-ING THING WORKED!!!

      Delete
    2. The basic view at least gets rid of the double scroll bars, I still cant believe they updated to a "frames" layout or rater a single framewith right hand scroll bar. Now in basic view that problem is fixed but now the drop down dialog box to move save etc a selected email floats up and down over the webpage and doesnt do anything. Noway to select and move an evail to a foleder etc.

      New management always wants to leave their mark by reorganizing and redoing things. New incompetent management always destroys things unwittingly by their foolish, ill-advised decisions. The new management of Yahoo has made their mark on the email their business was built on. They won't last long in their new yahoo leadership positions or the company will be ruined.

      Delete
    3. Great post. You are right on. Yahoo mail is now basically useless. It's hard to believe that the new CEO of Yahoo had the audacity and arrogance to change something that was good into something terrible without even running test or beta versions past their users! I don't like gmail but it's now better than Yahoo mail. Goodbye Yahoo mail.

      Delete
  2. The new Yahoo email is so primitive that we can no longer forward emails containing graphics; it converts the graphics to their html coding and forwards that instead. Yet Yahoo has the gall to call this an "upgrade." What were they thinking? What were they smoking??

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  3. New yahoo email sicks
    I'm changing email and it to bad for Yahoo to lose so many people for going with this stupid new mail

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  4. Did anyone at Yahoo care if the new format was user friendly?

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  5. It's just plain awful!

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  6. I want to write to someone at Yahoo to tell them how terribly awful the new email is, but I don't even know where to start. Everything about it Is a mess . The default settings now show my emails with the most recent message in a chain LAST...what? Why are they reinventing that? I feel like an idiot b/c I can't find the send button, and the interface seems to change everyday. It's just...ewww...it feels all wrong! I miss my old yahoo mail.

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  7. Sometimes I Google "why does new Yahoo mail suck" just so I don't feel so alone. I still cannot believe the STUNNING lack of practical, basic and intuitive functionality in the new Yahoo mail. If I wanted a text or IM-like interface, I would be using text or IM instead of email. The new interface is nearly impossible to use for professional correspondence. Note to Yahoo, Things That Matter: Easily seeing all recipients in any single email in a chain of correspondence; easily seeing distinction between Cc and Bcc (yes, it sometimes matters!) in my sent emails; switching easily between prior emails (for reference or cut and paste) while drafting a new email; quickly seeing the actual sender's email address BEFORE opening a new email (this hover function to reveal sender's email works sometimes with one of my Yahoo accounts, but never in my other Yahoo mail acct. . . . ?); finding the "send" button without having to operate two different scrolling bars to get to the bottom of the screen . . . . and the list goes on, daily.

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  8. You can revert back to the prior version.
    Go to the Gear in the upper right corner.
    Click on 'Settings'.
    Click on 'Viewing email'
    Under "Mail Version" click on 'Basic'.
    Click Save.
    Problem solved.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. There is no gear in the upper right corner. I have sent emails to yahoo and nothing. I need help

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    2. I did it. It works!! Thank You!!!!

      Delete
    3. The classic is sorta the same as the old one, but not really.

      Delete
    4. No yahoo messenger on the classic version. or calendar or notepad

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    5. Just as uselkess, and deleted all of my contacts and e-mail history. Im dont with Yahoo

      Delete
  9. now you have advertisement pop up while trying to read your headlines. what's up with that? It sucks. yahoo you are blowing it.

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  10. Yahoo believes the current rise in stock value (short term) if more important than user satisfaction (long term) Hate to do it but I can't use this new Yahoo Crap. I've held off for weeks hoping they'd see the light. Guess not. I'm moving my email.

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  11. Dear Yahoo Mail Customer "Service":

    You guys have done some really jacked up things in the past six months since you took what was a wonderful e-mail service and destroyed it.

    I'm a VERY loyal brand customer, but I have to say that your management has phenomenally trashed your brand in a VERY short period of time. Prior to April 2013, if I had been surveyed about companies with which I did business and had to rank those companies, I would have placed Yahoo Mail in the top five companies with which I was most satisfied and as a brand about which I had EXTREMELY good feelings.

    I can no longer say that. I think, most frustrating, is the utter arrogance and contempt that the management of Yahoo must have for its customers, insofar as it has erected a huge wall of obfuscation between itself and its customers. It has become clear to me in the past six months that your management really DOESN'T want to hear feedback from its customers and DOESN'T care to address problems with its product and almost seems to be DARING me and hundreds of thousands of other customers to switch and go elsewhere.

    If I had any sense that I could cogently communicate my concerns to Yahoo management, with any sense that anyone would take them seriously and address them, I might be inclined to stick around until you worked things out. But you have absolutely NO WAY to communicate with anyone in Customer Service that gives me even the slightest confidence that anyone will address my concerns.

    After trying for hours today to reply to e-mails, with continual frustration, I tried for another TWO HOURS to try to find SOME way in your Help pages to resolve the problem. Then, I finally called your password reset telephone number, since it was the ONLY telephone number you have.

    I spent nearly two more hours on the phone, on hold, listening to messages that LIED to me, telling me that my call was important to you when it clearly isn't (because, if it was, you'd hire enough people to answer the phones and show me some respect by empowering your employees to HELP me, instead of having to tell me that they CAN'T do anything more than assist with password resets).

    I should have been finished with my replies to emails within about 30 minutes. Instead, it is the end of the work day and I've accomplished NOTHING, in an ENTIRE DAY!!!

    Fortunately, while I was on hold for nearly two hours, I found a good alternative, with LIVE customer service!

    The ONLY thing that keeps me from switching immediately is that I still have lots of letterhead and business cards with a Yahoo e-mail address and I'll have to go through the hassle of telling everyone I know to please start writing me at a new address, and I'll have to log in to two different accounts every day for the next several months until most of the people start writing to me at the new address. I really don't want to go through all that hassle, but if Yahoo Mail remains as utterly unusable as it became for me today, I will have no choice.

    If I were you, I'd seriously be checking for better jobs with other companies, because I think Yahoo's days are numbered; at least with the current management. Your stockholders CAN'T be happy with a management that appears to be so utterly clueless about customer service in a post-industrial “service” economy.

    Once I leave Yahoo Mail, I'm not going to be coming back for Yahoo searches, or Yahoo Chat, or to read Yahoo News, or to make comments on Yahoo message boards or to have virtually any other experience with Yahoo. And I'm not going to be looking at any of those advertisements on all those various Yahoo services. Your company will have become a meaningless cipher in my life experience.

    ReplyDelete
  12. I have a degree in Computer Science, and have owned and operated a software development company for over 27 years. If I had written software as convoluted, difficult to use and bug-ridden as this latest version of Yahoo Mail, I wouldn't have lasted 27 months. Also, if I utterly ignored the frustrations and complaints of my users to the extent that Yahoo has, I wouldn't have any users left.
    As far as I can tell, there is no move afoot to correct any of these problems. No pronouncement (confession) that they know there are many problems and are doing everything in their power to correct them as soon as possible so that their millions of dedicated users can function efficiently once again. Instead, silence - an arrogant silence. It's like they're telling us "like it or lump it and quit whining."
    Well, I've chosen to "chuck it". Gmail, here I come.

    ReplyDelete
  13. I have a degree in Computer Science, and have owned and operated a software development company for over 27 years. If I had written software as convoluted, difficult to use and bug-ridden as this latest version of Yahoo Mail, I wouldn't have lasted 27 months. Also, if I utterly ignored the frustrations and complaints of my users to the extent that Yahoo has, I wouldn't have any users left.
    As far as I can tell, there is no move afoot to correct any of these problems. No pronouncement (confession) that they know there are many problems and are doing everything in their power to correct them as soon as possible so that their millions of dedicated users can function efficiently once again. Instead, silence - an arrogant silence. It's like they're telling us "like it or lump it and quit whining."
    Well, I've chosen to "chuck it". Gmail, here I come.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Having been a long-time user of Yahoo! Mail, and having been an employee of Yahoo! for a year and a half, I reeeaallllyy don't want to leave! I have about 16 years of correspondence, contacts, etc. saved in there and it will be a royal pain in the *ss to move to another system. However, I have to agree with everyone here that Yahoo! really just doesn't care about the functionality of the tool. It's clear that Marissa is trying to make it more like Gmail, but they're doing a terrible job doing it.

    I wish that having been on the inside I could provide insight on who to talk to, but sadly, it wouldn't do any good. I actually worked on a project for Mail and found that they just don't bother to listen to or act upon feedback from their customers. And last I checked, they turned off comments on their Yahoo! Mail Facebook page for that exact reason. Very sad!!!

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  15. Really horrible. How could any company trot out something like this? Just incredibly unusable. It now takes half an hour to maybe compose and send an actual email. Erratic system response. Non-working buttons etc. I am posting this here because the yahoo feedback system is a joke too.

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  16. Yahoo mail sucks so bad it's barely functional what was once fine working email now is the biggest peice of hit ever

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  17. I ve had Yahoo mail since forever, but they made it sooo pathetic!!! since last few months every time i log in, i cannot get anything functioning right! Soo disappointed. the "Search mail" button does not work at all!! it does not search anything.....either its too slow or it just doesnt work.

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  18. I had yahoo email until they forced linking my private phone number to the email account. Who in their right minds think the rothschild related marissa mayer is going to run a good business when her mandate is secret and from folks we will never meet. Please think about what yahoo gets from nsa and other government agencies as i find much more sense when viewed from those perspectives...(really send a secure email password to an unknown phone number as a text?...no other reason but to grab numbers and i pity any who have went along with the plot as you know why by now...) i closed account that day and have never looked back...

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  19. I am done with Yahoo Mail after the latest round of "mis-fitted" bunch of junk and just plain CRAP that they are attempting to literally to shove down customers throats. It was a nice ride but NO THANKS !!

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  20. How are Yahoo and AOL even in business still? They are both antiquated dinosaurs, and what they do offer doesn't even work.

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  21. New Yahoo mail is bad!!!! I am changing to Gmail for good. bye bye Yahoo Mail

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  22. Old Yahoo sucked ... new Yahoo sucks the big one!! My professional as well as personal correspondence is a mess. Yahoo is a joke, no assistance, no support, no fixing .... just wasted time and personal misery. This system is the arm pit of email.

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  23. Yahoo is getting crappier by the day. And riddled with useless adverts.

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    Replies
    1. I know everywhere there is a 1/4 inch of free space they throw in a popup ad you cant avoid.

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  24. The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits.

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  25. Yahoo's refusal to give up "comet.yahoo.com" cinched the deal for me. I got a defferent email server. The problem is solved. I occasionally log back in -- but same problem persists. I recommend everybody switch. I hope they drown in their own crappy email.

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