Managing Your Yahoo Mailbox(Working With Folders Creating Folders Moving Messages Sorting Messages Deleting Messages Renaming and Deleting Folders)

Working With Folders

Looking to keep better tabs on your messages? You’re in luck. Yahoo! Mail folders make it easy to organize those incoming and outgoing messages.

Yahoo! Mail stores all your messages for as long as you have your Yahoo! Mail account, no matter what folder they’re in (with the exception of Trash and Spam)—and there’s no limit to the number of messages that you can save.

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On first glance you’ll notice that your mailbox has five special-purpose, permanent folders that you can’t remove or rename:

•   Inbox—Unless you tell us otherwise, all incoming messages automatically go to your Inbox folder (except suspected spam). You can read your mail in the Inbox, then delete it, move it to another folder, or leave it in the Inbox.
  
• Drafts—The Drafts folder holds messages that you’ve composed but haven’t sent yet. A message saved in your Drafts folder stays there until you either send it or delete it.  
  
• Sent—You have the option of saving copies of the email messages you’ve sent in your Sent folder. This makes it simple for you to review or resend the message if necessary.  
  
• Trash—When you delete messages in Yahoo! Mail, they’re moved to the Trash folder. But remember that messages in your Trash folder can be deleted at any time without warning. So don’t put them in the Trash if you want them later. You can also empty the Trash folder yourself. Once messages are emptied from the Trash folder, they are permanently deleted from the Yahoo! Mail server and can’t be recovered.
  
• Spam—The first time you get a message that SpamGuard considers junk mail, it creates an additional permanent folder called Spam, where it stores these messages.  
  

With this in mind, you’ll see that it’s easy to view the contents of any folder in your Yahoo! Mail account.

 

Here’s How

1. Go to your Yahoo! Mail Inbox. (Remind me how.)
   A list of all your folders appears on the left side of the page, and the messages in your Inbox folder appear on the right.
   
   A number next to a folder’s name tells you the number of unread messages in that folder.
   
   
2. Click the name of a folder to see its contents.
   
   A list of messages in that folder appears in the summary area on the right.
   
   
3. To display a message in the Reading Pane (the area below the list of messages), click the desired message in the list of messages. 
   
   
4. To close a mail folder (that is, to no longer display the messages it contains), click the name of a different folder.
   
   

   Creating a New Folder

   To make your mail easy to manage, Yahoo! Mail lets you create as many personal mail folders as you want. Personal folders help you organize incoming and outgoing messages in ways that make sense to you.
   
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   Here’s How

5. On the folders list on the left side of your Yahoo! Mail page, click the Add link next to Folders.
   
   A new folder appears in the Folders list with the default name "untitled", and it is selected.
   
   
6. Type a name for the new folder, and press Enter or click outside the name box.
   
   
   Tip: Folder names can include letters, numbers, and the hyphen (-), space ( ), and underline (_) characters only.
   
   The new folder appears selected on the Folders list in alphabetical order.
   
   
   Note: It’s not possible to create subfolders (that is, folders within folders).
   
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   Moving Messages to Another Folder

   Moving messages between folders in your Yahoo! Mail account is easy. You can either drag and drop messages from one folder to another or move them using the Move menu.
   
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   Tips for selecting multiple messages:
   
   To select multiple consecutive messages, select the first message in the series, hold down the Shift key and select the last message in the series.
   
   To select multiple messages that aren’t consecutive, hold down the Ctrl key (Windows) or the Apple key (Mac) and select individual messages,
   
   To select all messages in a folder, click the box at the top of the column of check boxes.
   
   
   
    

   Here’s How

   To move messages using drag-and-drop:
   
8. Open the folder with the emails you want to move. (Remind me how.)
   
9. Click the check box in front of each message that you want to move to select it (or select multiple messages as described above).
   
   
10. Drag the selected message or messages to the target folder.
    As you drag the messages, indicates that you can’t drop them at the location of the cursor. For example, you can’t drop a message into the folder where it is currently stored or onto the reading pane.
    
    When your dragging reaches a folder, indicates that you can drop the messages there.
    
    
11. Release the mouse button to drop the messages.
    The messages go into the target folder.
    
12. To see the messages you moved, click the name of the folder they went into.
    
    The relocated messages appear on the folder’s message list.
    
    

 

To move messages using the Move menu:

1. Open the folder containing the emails you want to move.
   
2. Click the check box in front of each message that you want to move to select it, or select multiple messages as described above.
   
3. From the Move menu in the folder’s toolbar, select the name of the destination folder.
   
   The messages move into the folder you selected.
   

   Sorting Messages in a Folder

   You can sort your messages by various aspects: the date you received them, who you received them from, or their subject. You can sort messages in a couple of ways: using the View menu or using the column headers.
   
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   When you first view a folder’s contents, the messages are automatically sorted in descending order by the date they were sent with the most recent messages at the top (hence, the newest ones first).
   

   
   A column header appears at the top of each column, displaying the title of the column. The sort order arrow appears on the selected column header, pointing in the direction that column is sorted: down for descending, up for ascending.
   
   You can sort the messages in any column by clicking the column header. Click once to sort the messages in descending order; click it again to sort them in ascending order.
   
   
   (More Details)
   
    

   Here’s How

   To sort messages using the View menu:
   
4. Open a folder. (Remind me how.)
   
5. Click View and choose a sorting option.
   
   

 

To sort messages using a column header:

1. Open a folder. (Remind me how.)
   
2. Click the Date column header.
   
   
3. The direction of the arrow changes, and the contents of the folder are restored in ascending order, so the most recent message appears at the bottom of the list.
   
   
4. To sort the messages by the data in a different column, click the desired column header. For example, click From to sort by the senders of the messages.
   
   The sort order arrow appears on the selected column header, and the contents of the folder are restored based on this column’s data. The sort order (that is, ascending or descending) remains the same as it was on the last column—ascending in this case.
   
   

Deleting Messages

When old email messages start piling up, you can delete email messages from any of your folders.

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Here’s How

1. Display the folder containing the email you want to delete, and select the message or messages to delete. (Remind me how to select multiple messages.)
   
   Tip: You might find it useful to sort your messages before selecting the ones you want to delete. For example, if you want to delete all the messages from a particular sender, first sort by sender. That way, all the messages from each person will appear together in the message list and you can easily find and delete the ones you want.
   
2. Click the Delete button (or press your computer’s Delete key).
   
   Yahoo! Mail moves the selected messages into your Trash folder.
   
   Tip: You can also delete email by dragging selected messages straight to the Trash folder.
   
3. Didn’t mean to delete that message? You can retrieve deleted messages from your Trash folder, as long as the trash hasn’t been deleted yet. To retrieve a deleted message, select the Trash folder in the folders pane, select the message or messages you want to retrieve, and drag them to your Inbox or another folder.
   
   
4. To permanently delete the messages in your Trash folder, click the Empty link next to the Trash folder on the left navigation bar.
   

   Renaming and Deleting Folders

   You can change the name of a personal folder anytime or delete it completely when you no longer need it.
   
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   Here’s How

   To rename a folder:
   
5. Double-click the folder whose name you want to change in your list of personal folders.
   The folder name highlights for editing.
   
   
6. Type the new name and then press Enter.
   
   
   Tip: Folder names can include letters, numbers, and the hyphen (-), space ( ), and underline (_) characters only.
   
   The renamed folder appears in alphabetical order in the personal folder list.
   
   

 

To delete a folder:

1. Select the folder to delete in your list of personal folders.
   
   Note: You can only delete empty folders, so be sure to move or delete all the messages in a folder before you try to delete it.
   
2. Press your keyboard’s Delete key.
   
3. Click the OK button to delete the empty folder.
   
   

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