Yahoo Mail, which turned 16, has finally got an update across all platforms with a new look that seems to borrow from Flickr and Tumblr. The new mail app brings Flickr generated themes and a host of new features designed to win back the hearts and minds of users who defected to Gmail or Outlook.com.
The company is also putting cap on the mail storage space. Yahoo mail users will now get 1 terabyte of space, which according to the company, is ample for all their emails and attachments. The redesign began rolling out Tuesday across the web and for apps on Windows 8, Android and iOS.
Mail is probably the most valuable of all Yahoo services, with over 100 million daily users. However, like many of Yahoo services, it was overtaken by similar mail services from Google and Microsoft - currently, Gmail has over 425 million users, while Outlook.com has over 420 million users.
Yahoo, not content with playing the catch-up game, has made all the features of Yahoo Mail Plus (which was available for $19.99 per year) free for all users. This means features like mail forwarding, POP email and disposable email addresses are now included with the primary account. This is a very significant and strategic move on Yahoo's part as it attempts to woo users back to its product.
Yahoo Mail's option to change themes is very similar to Gmail. However, the company takes it a step further by allowing users to set a theme based on their Flickr photos. This option is available both for the desktop and mobile apps. In addition, if the user set a theme on one device, it will carry over to another device, dispensing the need to set your theme again when moving from one device to another.
It is clear that Yahoo aims to advance its mail offering over Gmail and Outlook.com. Recently, the company launched new mail apps for tablets along with releasing unused email address back to the public. The goal here is to get the mail aspect of Yahoo growing again; for if the company can get users to use its mail product, it makes it easier to get these same users to try out other available Yahoo products. However, will email users switch from Gmail and Outlook.com to give Yahoo mail a chance? Time will tell.
