Setting up a Free Email Account

1. Locate a free computer in the lab and make sure it is turned on
2. Single click the mouse on the Start button in the lower left corner of your screen. Single click on Programs. Find the item on the menu that has a blue “e” and says Internet Explorer and single click on it.
3. Internet Explorer should load and show http://www.yahoo.com as the homepage. If Internet Explorer was already loaded, you should press the home button on the menu bar to go to yahoo.
4. Within Yahoo, at the top of the screen, you should see something that says “Check E-mail” or “Mail.” Single click on that.
5. You might see one of two options at this time:
   • If part of the screen is asking for your username and password, then click on “Sign Me Up.”
   • If part of the screen says Hi, (someone’s name), and then “Please enter your password,” the you need to click on “Change User.” Then click on “Return to Yahoo Mail,” then click on “Sign me up.”
6. In the “Yahoo ID” field, type what you want the first part of your E-mail to be (i.e what becomes before the @yahoo.com). Be sure it is something original because over 30 million usernames are already on yahoo, so most are already used.
7. Type your password in the password field. Be sure to write it somewhere where you won’t lose it.
8. On the “Question We’ll Ask” select one of the three questions. They will ask you this question in case you lose your password. Be sure you remember the answer exactly as you typed it with the correct spelling.
9. Enter your birthday.
10. For the E-mail address, type none@none.com or make up something and put it before “none.com” since you don’t have one.
11. Enter your zip code, gender, occupation (i.e. K-12 student), and industry of where you work or go to school (i.e. education)
12. You probably want to click on the check mark (so there isn’t a check mark), where it says “Contact me from time to time about specials and new products.” Otherwise you will get a lot of junk mail.
13. Click on submit. If you didn’t fill out some parts correctly, you will need to do that now. A common mistake is that usernames cannot contain certain characters like spaces, commas and other punctuation.
    
    • If your username was already used by someone else (which it almost always is), you will need to change it to something else. Remember you need to do something creative like add a number to your name. Once you get a username that works, be sure to write it down. Your E-mail address will be the username you chose then @yahoo.com (i.e. preptraining@yahoo.com), be sure to write down your E-mail address.
14. Once you are done, click on “Take me to My Yahoo.” Then you will need to type in your first and last name.
15. Finally you should see a screen that says, “Hi, your username” and then “Please enter your password.” Type your password and press enter or click on Submit, and then you should be in your mail.

Using Yahoo Mail

To get to your mail

1. Locate a free computer in the lab and make sure it is turned on

2. Single click the mouse on the Start button in the lower left corner of your screen. Single click on Programs. Find the item on the menu that has a blue “e” and says Internet Explorer and single click on it.

3. Internet Explorer should load and show http://www.yahoo.com as the homepage. If Internet Explorer was already loaded, you should press the home button on the menu bar to go to yahoo.

4. Within Yahoo, at the top of the screen, you should see something that says “Check E-mail” or “Mail.” Single click on that.

5. You might see one of two options at this time:

· If part of the screen is asking for your username and password then enter your username and password.

· If part of the screen says Hi, (someone else’s username), and then “Please enter your password,” the you need to click on “Change User.” Then click on “Return to Yahoo Mail,” then enter your username and password.

Signing Out from Your Mail

1. Once inside your mail and you are done. Click on “Sign Out” on the left of your screen.

2. Close your Web browsers by clicking on the “X” in the top right of your window or click on the “File” menu at the top left and then click on close.

3. It is very important that you do both of these steps so that someone else cannot read your mail later.

To check and view messages

1. Once in mail (as described above), click on “check mail” on the left or “Inbox” in the middle of your screen to see your messages.

2. Click on a blue link under “Subject” to view your mail.

3. Hit the back button on your Web browser to see a list of messages. Click on another message as needed

To Reply to or Forward a Message

3. After performing steps 1 & 2 under “To check and view messages” above. You should see buttons with the options “Reply,” “Reply to All” and “Forward” at the top of the message. Each of these does something slightly different as follows:

· Clicking “Reply” will open a new message only to the person who sent the current message.

 Additional Topics:

• To Send a New Message

• To Delete Messages

• To Use Folders

• To Get Online Help