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
Xyu BAM
Sep 10th 2008, 10:09PM
Wow!
Its amazing how many people are actually buying this...unless of course you don't care that not only your login information but also all your emails from these services will be stored or at least "processed" on AOL servers, go ahead, enjoy.
kerry
Sep 10th 2008, 10:34PM
i want in this email
chetram
Sep 14th 2008, 11:45PM
Acess my yahoo mail id
chetram
Sep 10th 2008, 11:58PM
. Thanx for the easy access to other email
Tammy
Sep 11th 2008, 12:40AM
Yes I would like to see an option at least or a drop down menu of any and all email/isp providers including those like charter and comcast that provide email as well so that all mail can be checked from one simple website. Also, I think that it would be extremely useful to be able to link together email accounts from all email providers that one person may have to aol email account links so that you can just use a drop down link like you can now with all aol accounts that you have and change from one to the other without ever having to leave the same website or url. If this is anything that could be possible in the near or not so distant future I would definitely be interested in hearing all there is to hear and know about it! Thanks!
espy15228
Sep 11th 2008, 12:21AM
This is nice, but I'd also like to see the ability to check those Web mail accounts and other e-mail accounts via the standard AOL Mail Web mail p. Is that on the drawing board?
alisadm
Sep 11th 2008, 1:11AM
This is cool. Now if you could only get that "Stay signed in until I sign out button to work"!
brianamarie
Sep 11th 2008, 1:30AM
thank yiu for helping me Irene Hicks
julie
Sep 11th 2008, 3:34AM
right on!!!!!!
Rajan
Sep 20th 2008, 10:59AM
Its nice to see something like this on AOL homepage,but truly speaking its not a big deal,its just a gadget (one can find many ,similar to the same in Google Gadgets) and a simple application of AJAX.But then I love AOL. :)
moralesdover
Sep 11th 2008, 4:54AM
I have 2 aol accounts and would like to stay signed in to both at the same time will I be able to do this, or does this only apply to the others? yahoo etc.
mohbagheri
Sep 11th 2008, 5:06AM
it is very good service
Carol
Sep 11th 2008, 7:12AM
Sorry, not interested.
JazzExtravaganza
Sep 11th 2008, 7:50AM
Very helpful.
Phyllis
Sep 11th 2008, 8:02AM
I have all of the email accounts listed and more! This works for me!
Banderia
Sep 11th 2008, 8:23AM
I want this new mail system.
saufl23
Sep 11th 2008, 9:20AM
Excellent. Anything to save time. Thanks
leihlahamilton
Sep 11th 2008, 9:27AM
This would be great
Lauren Laffitte
Sep 11th 2008, 9:34AM
Looking forward to saving time and having one stop email---
mefalk55
Sep 11th 2008, 9:34AM
I like it all, just the way I have it, Thank You. But, I like it just the way I have it. See? Gracious or what ever language you prefer, I'm just fine with what I have...........