We realize that AOL.com is not the only web site that you use and that you may, like many of us, have multiple email accounts with different providers. We received a lot of positive feedback from many of you on the AOL Mail Preview and the convenience of that experience. But to make us even more useful, we need to embrace reality that you visit other sites and become more of a launch pad to your other online experiences. With that in mind, we wanted to give you the ability to preview your e-mail from other providers like Gmail and Yahoo! directly on AOL.com. Why shouldn't you be able to preview all your e-mail accounts in one place?! And this is just the beginning - there are even more new features just around the corner that will let you access your news, your social networks and more all right from AOL.com!!
We're really excited about this new feature and we hope you are too. These enhancements to AOL.com are designed to give you options - not force you to change - so if you don't have multiple email addresses or don't think the feature is something you'll use often, no worries. You're not stuck with it. You can very easily change the pre-selected Preview Panel choices (those buttons that may be currently displaying AOL, Yahoo, Gmail and Weather) by clicking on the small triangle in upper right corner of each panel.
There are many, many other options available including eBay, Finance, Health, Movies, Music, and TMZ to name just a few. If you still haven't found what you're looking for, let us know what you would like to see!
Still with us?
Let's move onto how this new mail feature works.
In addition to being able to preview your AOL Mail, there are three email providers we've added to AOL.com: Yahoo!, GMail, and Hotmail. For each mail provider, when you mouse-over the Preview Panel, you'll find step by step instructions to guide you through the set-up process.
Each one is a little bit different so, here's a quick walkthrough.
Yahoo
To add a Yahoo account to your mail preview, simply place your mouse over the Y! icon. The panel will expand and you'll find a button prompting you to sign-in.
Once you click this button, you will go to a Yahoo! sign-in screen where you can enter your current Yahoo! username and password. Yahoo! will display their Terms of Service – essentially confirming that you are who you say you are and that Yahoo! can deliver emails to the AOL.com Yahoo! Preview Panel -- pretty standard stuff. After clicking "I Agree", AOL.com will then display with your new mail displayed in the Yahoo Panel. And you will continue to get your Yahoo! Mail preview on subsequent visits to AOL.com until you log out.
GMail
To add a GMail account to your mail preview, simply mouse-over the GMail icon. The panel will expand and you will see entry fields for username and password to sign-in.
For GMail, once you input your current GMail username and password and click sign-in, you will immediately see all of your unread email. Like with Yahoo, if you choose to "Remember me on this computer", you will get your GMail preview on subsequent visits to AOL.com until you log out.
Hotmail
We'd love to give you access to Hotmail also but unfortunately, Microsoft does not provide us the ability for you to access your account via AOL.com. Because of this, we've kept Hotmail as one of the other options that you can choose rather than preselecting it as one of the default choices on your screen – so if you want to access the Hotmail preview panel, you'll have to swap it out with one of the ones already there by clicking on the arrow in the corner. Keeping that in mind, we've done what we can for our Hotmail users and provided a link to Hotmail. Hopefully that will make it a little easier to access your account from AOL.com. If interested, feel free to send Microsoft some feedback to let them know you'd like to be able to do this on AOL. https://feedback.live.com/default.aspx?mkt=en-us&productkey=wlmail&scrx=1
So there it is -- a quick overview of our new mail feature. By being able to quickly glance at new emails you have for all of your accounts, we're hoping you'll save time by not having to navigate to multiple websites and sign-in over and over, and over again.
If you more questions, you can also check this blog post for some Frequently Asked Questions. If you have a question that we still haven't answered, leave us a comment and we'll be sure to respond.
So, whaddya think? We want to hear from you!
Reader CommentsRSS
ecfeichter
Sep 9th 2008, 10:58PM
Great....I also have a Yahoo account
James
Sep 9th 2008, 11:03PM
nice, very cool!!
NEESHA PATEL
Sep 9th 2008, 11:13PM
this sounds relevantly convenient
i would like to try it out, so it would save my time in signing in on seperate accounts checking an deleting my mail and etc. what-so-ever. thankyou
trin_trin_martinez
Sep 9th 2008, 11:23PM
Muy Bien!!!
LYNNTM04
Sep 9th 2008, 11:24PM
smart, cool .thanks
karla
Sep 9th 2008, 11:35PM
ohh yeh so much fun
enddyktm
Sep 9th 2008, 11:40PM
ohh yesss...perfect! Thanks.
calamari80
Sep 9th 2008, 11:48PM
where do I sign?
DESIREE
Sep 9th 2008, 11:54PM
THAT WOULD BE GREAT!!
garygalustian
Sep 10th 2008, 12:18AM
this is the most convinient and easy way to access.
a big Hi5....
Thanks AOL
jamesfannings
Sep 10th 2008, 12:20AM
ILOVEITALLJAMESFANNINGSKEEPDOINGRIGHT
davidvy85
Sep 10th 2008, 12:36AM
It's a Great Advancement in the World of Internet, Thanks AOL for taking this Giant Step and making it easy for everyone to access their different email accounts. That's a Fantastic Job!
wallace
Sep 10th 2008, 1:13AM
I think this is so cool that they finely came together in one place so it makes it easer to check all my e-mail accounts in one place.
shena
Sep 10th 2008, 1:28AM
... ok but why does this feel like big brother watching???
Preeti
Sep 10th 2008, 1:45AM
This feature is amazing man.. cool stuff
mohbagheri
Sep 10th 2008, 2:15AM
thank you
milad
Sep 10th 2008, 2:52AM
hi thank for tag
jawan27
Sep 10th 2008, 2:54AM
Thanx for the easy access to other email. Now we can work smarter and not harder....
ashish srivastav
Sep 10th 2008, 3:09AM
nice
Asif
Sep 10th 2008, 3:57AM
thats cool..amazin wdnt let me in troublr by goin to other pages...