Yahoo Mail (or lack thereof)

I saw Ernie had done some work on the new Yahoo sites so I thought I’d log in to check it out. Notepad was… a textarea. Calendar was cool. Contacts still had all the information I had imported 4 years ago, which I thought was pretty neat. When I went to the mail tab, however, I was greeted by this not-so-friendly notice:

Your Yahoo! Mail account is no longer active.

Why is my account inactive?

Yahoo! Mail deactivated your mail account because either:

  1. You have not logged into your account in the last 4 months, or
  2. You have asked that your mail account be deactivated

What does this mean?

  • All emails, folders, attachments and preferences have been deleted
  • All messages sent to saxmatt02@yahoo.com are being bounced back to the sender
  • You can still use your Yahoo! ID to access other registered services on Yahoo!
  • Deleted information cannot be recovered

Protect your account!

Subscribe to Yahoo! Mail Plus and you will not be required to sign in […]

I got tired of typing. I think everyone at Yahoo should be banned from using exclamation points for a month, even in their code. I hope I didn’t have anything important in that email account.

18 thoughts on “Yahoo Mail (or lack thereof)

  1. I’ve run into that too. I’ve been on Yahoo so long I actually have just my first name as my account name, and frankly it’s all trouble – tons and tons of spam from dictionary attacks; people use it to sign up for stuff for access on systems that don’t verify the email; lots of offers of German stuff, too – spam I can’t even read. I really only used it for backup, but with webmail access to pop accounts easy these days I don’t get in there much anymore, and the last time I got that notice. Fine by me – I hoped it would cut down the spam if everything was bouncing. When I reopened it: nope. Now, of course, it’ll fill up with 100mb of spam instead of 6mb and then get shut off. Progress… I guess.

  2. Sounds like you’re one of the 50 million mailids that they boasted about freeing up.

    The demand for saxmatt02 must have been huge! See if saxmatt03 has your old mailid now šŸ˜‰

  3. Yup, I’ve seen this thing also. I didn’t weep about it though; Cool URI‘s don’t change, but there’s a lot of benifits that come with changing email addresses once in a while (no too often though, as it also brings trouble).

    By the way, 2GB? Trying to outdo Google again, are we? :p

  4. It’s just the webmail competition heating up… they upped their storage space to compete with Gmail, so they had to add a feature from Hotmail as well.

  5. I had exactly that screen just today! I’m not sure how it could count as freeing up email names though, since I still have the yahoo ID that I had all along…

  6. Yahoo has been deactivating inactive accounts for some while. I’m sure they’re not alone in this practice.

    Four months is a long time for any account to go unused. Most people would assume you didn’t want it at all. So, if you don’t use the account then why should they reserve the space?

    If you were paying then that’s different, you’ve bought the right to be as careless as you want. Why should they care if you don’t use it then? You’ve already paid.

    Just be thankful they didn’t delete your entire account. That’s if you’re actually going to use it.

  7. ooooh Yahoo! Don’t get me started… They cancelled our dial-up account including emails that my husband was using for busines, without us asking or directing them to do so.

  8. Hi,
    I have lost all my yahoo emails , couple of days. I have been trying to contact yahoo support . But i havent found any email id that can help me in solving this problem. I access yahoo email atleast twice a day. I have been posting this matter in most of the forums and also sending yahoo emails…But there is no response. I have been using my yahoo for the last 6 years and it has 9MB of data. This happened after they upgraded to 100MB. I have noticed my “Friends” group in yahoo messenger is also deleted and also my photos associated with this account.

    I have most of the important information in this account. My account is still active and the currently i have 2 MB of data which has totally new emails (i mean after the mails got lost).
    I would be very very very greatful if u can help me or send me the contact information of yahoo.

    Thanks in Advance
    Naren

  9. I have an email account with yahoo for 6 years now, but last time i was prompted with an invalid password error and since that moment i cannot log in anymore :s… i created my account on 21-10-1998 and last updated on 21-10-2004! And since that day i cannot access my account!
    Does anybody now anything about that?…contact me at d.klamer@student.rug.nl

  10. hi!! help please!!! i made up albums of photos of my favourite pics and well my comp had to be fixed and it took so long to do with the time and effort i put into them otto i went through can you give me a hint that i maybe able to look and retreive them for i think i have lost all of my hard work any comments welcome to get back tome thanks cassey

  11. I log into my yahoo account everyday and they still deactivated it, and I lost everything. Luckily, there was nothing but crap in my email account. This is the second time happening. I am positive that their servers crashed with no backups or had data corrupting bugs on their end.

  12. Apparently the email account-security-help@cc.yahoo-inc.com gets good response from yahoo. I have the same problem at teh moment, waiting for yahoo to reply. I use my e-mail account with yahoo constantly so it isn’t for being inactive. Maybe thats their ploy to get people to subscribe for the paid for accounts. Shameful!

  13. This just happened to my this morning. I check my Yahoo email everyday, but they still deactivated it. I lost years of emails. I reactivated, but I’m seriously considering not using it any more!

  14. Yahoo! is just perfect service if you want to lose or your data.I just love it and will continue to use it.Sometimes its good to lose all yours emails,friends contacts,phone numbers of your love ones,and start all over again,like a new and reborn man:)….YAHOO000 ROCKS.

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