Yahoo! Hacks

Create Yahoo! Mail Macros

With a combination of email drafts, direct URL bookmarks, and bookmarklets, you can send complex emails with one click.

In the world of office software, a macro is a little bit of code that combines several steps of a process into a single click. Macros take advantage of a computer’s ability to automate tasks and can significantly reduce any repetitive task that needs to be done. Taking this thinking to the world of Yahoo! Mail, you can create your own Yahoo! Mail macros to help you send messages.

The normal process of sending a message involves going to Yahoo! Mail, clicking the Compose button, selecting a recipient, typing a subject and message, and clicking the Send button. These steps aren’t very labor-intensive, but if you find yourself sending the same types of email again and again, there are a few ways you can speed things up.

Drafts

Imagine you send a weekly email with some statistics to a group of coworkers. The introduction, explanation, and ending of the email stay the same from week to week, with only a bit of text in the middle changing each time. The simplest way to automate this type of message is with the built-in Drafts folder at Yahoo! Mail. Draft emails are like templates that can be used and reused as many times as you need.

To create a draft, browse to the standard email form at Yahoo! Mail (http://mail.yahoo.com) by clicking Compose Mail on the navigation menu or pressing Shift-Ctrl-P on the keyboard. Give the email a descriptive subject ...