I’m a long-time Yahoo Mail user and find that while it’s not the most modern interface, it’s reliable and lets me keep my email address. I’m heading out for a few weeks on a cruise, however, and want to set up a vacation autoresponder first. Is that possible in Yahoo Mail? Please walk me thru the steps…
There’s nothing wrong with making the decision to stick with what you know than keep bouncing to new platforms and make your friends and family keep updating your email address! Now, did you realize that Yahoo introduced its web-based email system back in 1997? Yahoo acquired a company called Four11 with an online email service called RocketMail and rebranded it Yahoo Mail on October 8th, 1997. That’s about 2oo years in Internet evolution time, right?
At this point, Yahoo reports that the service has about 230 million active users, so it’s a significant platform and in the top ten by volume. The “Pro” paid service was introduced in the summer of 2017, so that’s been around for rather a while too. It gives you a lot more power and capabilities and gets rid of all those annoying advertisements for a modest $34.99/yr [which works out to $2.91/mo].
Anyway, let’s jump into Yahoo Mail and set up that vacation responder so you can head to your cruise ship knowing that everyone will know you’re offline for a bit!
YAHOO MAIL SETTINGS
Because it’s a Web-based interface, your steps will be identical whether you’re on a Chromebook, Mac, PC, or even a Linux system. Log in to your Yahoo Mail account, then look for the gear icon on the top right. Click on it to reveal the main system menu:
If you haven’t explored the many ways you can customize your user interface, I encourage you to take a small sidetrack here and click on a few of the theme buttons!
When you’re ready to proceed, choose “••• More Settings“, then look on the left side for “Vacation response“:
To actually configure it, turn on the feature by ensuring that the slider is blue, as shown above.
SETTING UP A YAHOO MAIL VACATION RESPONSE
Now it’s time to delve into the various features and capabilities of the vacation responder. To start, you’ll want to specify the start and end dates:
As you can see, it’s pretty darn easy. I would encourage you to start your vacation responder on the day before your vacation and have it run until you return home, not the end of your cruise.
NOTE: If you set it to have a start date in the future, don’t be surprised if your test email messages don’t generate the response: You haven’t started your vacation yet, according to your settings. It’s a common mistake to make, however!
Once you have the start and end dates specified, it’s time to compose your vacation message. I’m going to dream about heading to Hawaii for a week, so here’s what I’ve written:
Functional, but… kind of boring when you have so many tools and features in Yahoo Mail to make your message have a bit more pizzaz! Let’s spruce it up. First, let’s add a beautiful sunset photo at the very top by using the “GIF” feature. A click on “GIF” and a window opens up with access to millions of different images. I’ll search for “beach sunset”…
An astonishing number of options are shown but I don’t have to scroll too far to find an image exactly like what I envision. A click on it and it’s at the top of my message. I also want to highlight the contact information for my admin, which is also easily done by clicking and dragging to select the text in question, then clicking on the colorful three dot icon on the bottom. A menu appears:
We’re getting there. The only other question to consider is whether you want a casual response for friends and a more formal or serious response for your colleagues. You can set up just that with the very last checkbox at the bottom:
Not worth the hassle? No worries. Click on “Save” and it’s in place and ready to be sent to anyone who sends you an email message:
I also added a few emoji to make it even more visually interesting. If people become jealous because of my trip, well, that’s on them, right?
SO WHAT DOES IT LOOK LIKE?
With that all set up and active, here’s what I get when I send a test message from another account:
That’s exactly as desired, so well done, Yahoo!
Now, when you return you can either have set it up to expire with an end date or you can go back to the Settings > Vacation response area and scroll to the very bottom, because a new button has shown up:
All in all, pretty darn easy. Now go and enjoy your cruise!
Pro Tip: I’ve been a Yahoo Mail subscriber since the beginning. I’m a fan. While you’re visiting, why not check out some of my other Yahoo Mail help tutorials too? Thanks.