How do I set up my Yahoo! Groups account? Joining Yahoo! Groups is easy! To get started you will need to register for a Yahoo! ID and link it to any email addresses you wish to use for Yahoo! Groups. Registration 1. Click on the Registration link on any Yahoo! Groups page. 2. Complete the registration form and click on Submit This Form. Note: The Yahoo! ID you choose must be unique. It does not need to match your email address. 3. You should receive an email confirming your registration. Make sure to record your Yahoo! ID and password. You will need these to sign into Yahoo! Groups. Setting up your account Sign in to your account to access the following features. • • • Use the Membership Wizard to locate your current subscriptions or to add up to 5 email addresses to your account. My Groups allows you to manage your account and group memberships. Click on the Account Info link near the top-right corner to change your Yahoo! account and profile information. How do I join a group? Join via the group page: 1. Locate a group to join. On the front page of Yahoo! Groups, you can browse the Groups directory or search for a group by topic. 2. Click on the Join This Group button on front page of any group. 3. If you are not signed in, you will be asked to enter your Yahoo! ID. If you do not have a Yahoo! ID, you can click on the link New to Yahoo!? Sign up now. 4. Set your membership preferences. When you join, you can choose a profile you'd like to display to the group, select the email address at which you'd like to receive group messages, choose how you receive group messages, and more. Join the mailing list only: We highly recommend you join a group via the group page (above). However, if you are familiar with mailing lists, you may join only the mailing list for the group. If you choose this method, you will not have access to all of the group's web features (Photos, Files, Links, Polls, Calendar.) In addition you will not have access to the My Groups page, where you can easily manage all of your memberships and email messages. To subscribe to a group's mailing list via email, send a blank email to: [email protected] Make sure to replace "groupname" with the actual name of the group (e.g., [email protected]). You will receive a confirmation message. Just reply to this message and your subscription will be complete. Respond to an invitation to join: If someone sent you an email invitation to join a group, click on the link provided to join via the Yahoo! Groups web site. I'm receiving email from a group, but when I visit the group page, it says I'm not recognized as a member. In some instances, it is possible for you to join a Yahoo! Group's email list without having access to the group's web features. When this happens, you will not be recognized upon visiting the group home page. To get full access to the group, otherwise known as "web membership," please follow the instructions below: 1. Go to the Yahoo! Groups Membership Wizard. You will be asked to sign in with your Yahoo! ID. (If you are not a registered Yahoo! member, you may sign up for a free account on this page. Once you complete your registration, you will be returned to the Membership Wizard.) 2. Make sure the email address where you are receiving messages from the group appears in the Membership Wizard. If it does not appear, add it via the link provided. (If you add an address, you will be sent a verification email to that address to assure that you own it. Please check your email and follow the instructions in the message sent to you.) 3. Once your email address appears in the Memberhip Wizard as verified, continue with the the steps in the wizard to convert your memberships to "web memberships." Upon completing the Membership Wizard, you should be recognized upon returning to the group and shouldn't experience this problem with the addresses you've just converted in the future. You should also be able to: • Access your group web features, such as Photos, Files, Calendar, and more. • Easily control the email delivery settings for all of your groups, via the Groups web site. Just visit the My Groups page. How do I verify my email address? In order to use an email address for Yahoo! Groups, the address must be verified. The easiest way to set up your account is to use the Membership Wizard. The wizard will show all of the email addresses you currently have available for use in Yahoo! Groups. Any unverified addresses will be listed at the bottom of the second page. Next to the address will be a Verify link. Click on the link to generate a verification email that will be sent to you at that address. Follow the instructions contained in the email to complete the process. If the email address you wish to use is not listed, click on the Add new email address link. If you are having difficulty verifying an address, please read the following troubleshooting steps. The email never arrives If you are not getting the verification email at all, please make sure you are using a valid email address. If you have tried to verify your alternate email address several times and you still never receive the mail although your address is valid, we recommend asking your ISP if they are blocking any mail from Yahoo!. If you have your mail forwarded, you may not receive the verification email. Also, please note that while the mail will arrive quickly, it is not instantaneous. In some cases, the email may be delayed several hours due to Internet traffic and the email delivery route. If you and your ISP are not blocking any email and if it has been over 24 hours since you've tried to verify your alternate email address, please let us know. No code in the email If you are receiving the verification email, but there is no code in the body of the email (around the middle of the email, surrounded by asterisks), you may not be viewing the correct email. The Groups verification email is different from the email you received when you first registered for your Yahoo! account. However, if you are viewing the correct email and cannot see a confirmation code, please forward this email to us. Please send it as regular text, not as an attachment. We will then investigate the problem further. Alternate email address did not match If you have received the verification email with the code and you've followed the instructions, but have received an error that your email address did not match, it is possible that you have used a different email address than the one on record for your account. If these addresses are different, the verification will not work. Please note that you cannot verify your "@yahoo.com" email address. Your alternate email address is the non-Yahoo! address you specified when you registered for your account. In order to check what email address you have with us, go to your My Groups page and click on Email Preferences. Incorrect password If your password did not work with the verification code and alternate email address, please make sure you are using the correct password. This password is the same one you use with your Yahoo! ID in order to access the different areas of Yahoo!. It is not your security key password or password on your alternate email address. It must be your regular Yahoo! password, entered exactly as you would enter it when signing into your account. Invalid code If you receive a message that the confirmation code is invalid, please make sure that the code in your email matches the code that you have entered into the confirmation page. If it was not automatically entered for you, we highly recommend copying and pasting the code into the code field. Copying and pasting the code may prevent errors since some letters or numbers may look similar. The code can be found about halfway through the confirmation email, surrounded by asterisks. How do I manage my group subscriptions? To manage your group subscriptions, sign in and go to My Groups. Click on Edit My Groups located above the list of groups. Use the drop-down menus to choose the email address and membership type for each group and click on Save Changes. If you do not see the email address you would like to use, click on Link your email addresses now near the top of the page. You can link up to 5 email addresses to your Yahoo! ID. How do I change the email address I use for subscriptions? Yahoo! Groups makes it easy to change the email addresses you use for subscriptions. Before you make any changes to your address, however, it's important to understand how your account works. Your account is identified by the Yahoo! ID you use to sign in. Your preferences, profile, and email addresses are all part of your account. Your account can have up to 5 email addresses that can be used for group subscriptions. To view the addresses linked to your account, go to My Preferences. To change your email address, you will first need to add your new email address to your account. Skip to the next set of instructions if the address is already linked to your Yahoo! ID. Adding an email address to your account: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. Sign in using your Yahoo! ID and click on Account Info. Click on the Edit button to the right of Member Information. Add your new email address as an Alternate Email Address and click Finished. Click on the Edit button to the right of Member Information again. Click on the Non-verified link and follow the steps to verify the address. Go to groups.yahoo.com and click on My Preferences. The new address should be listed as "Not currently available for subscription." Click on the Edit button to the right of Email Addresses. 8. Click on the Convert link to the right of the new email address. 9. An email with an authorization code will be sent to the address. (It should arrive within minutes, but may take longer. Please allow up to 12 hours to receive the email.) Follow the instructions contained in the email to complete the process. Changing your subscription addresses: 1. Go to My Groups 2. Click on Edit My Groups 3. Use the drop-down menus to select the appropriate email address for each group, and click on Save Changes. Removing your old email address: 1. Go to My Preferences and click on the Edit button to the right of Email Addresses. 2. Click on the Remove link to the right of the email address you no longer want to use. How do I view or edit my email preferences? As a Yahoo! Groups member, you can customize your individual preferences and manage the email addresses you use for subscriptions. Simply click on the My Email Preferences link on the My Groups page. Note: You must be signed in with your Yahoo! ID in order to access your preferences. How do I add a new email address to my Yahoo! Groups account? You can add a new email address to your Yahoo! Groups account in one of two ways. Method A 1. First, add the email address to your Yahoo! ID by following these steps: o Go to the Account Info page. o Click the Edit button next to Member Information. o Enter the new email address in one of the Alternate Email fields. o Click the Finished button. 2. Next, verify your email address. (This must be done to make sure you own the email address.) o Click the Edit button next to Member Information again. o Click on the Non-verified link next to the new email address. o You will be taken to the Email Address Verification page. Click on the Send Verification button. o Check for a verification email message sent to that address. (This might take a while). Click the link in the email(s) we sent to verify your email address. Enter the email confirmation code and Yahoo! password in the boxes. 3. Note: If the new address is already known to Yahoo! Groups (i.e., you used it to subscribe to a group), you'll have to convert it. (We're working on eliminating this step.) o Go to the My Preferences page. o Click on the Edit button next to Email Accounts. o Find the email address you'd like to add to Yahoo! Groups and click on the Convert link. o Follow the steps in the conversion wizard to link this address to your Yahoo! Groups account. Method B 1. Join a group via email. o Send an email from the new address to: [email protected]. (Make sure to replace "groupname" in the address with the actual name of the group.) o Reply to the confirmation message sent to you to verfiy that you own that address. Note: This will be an "email-only" membership. You will be able to receive email from the group (and post if it is a discussion group). If you want to access all of the web features of the group, you will have to convert it. Yahoo is currently working on improving this process to make it easier. How do I remove an email address from my Yahoo! Groups account? Just follow these steps: 1. Click the My Preferences link in the top-right corner of any Yahoo! Groups page. 2. Click the Edit button in the Email Addresses section. 3. Click on the Remove link next to the address you want to unlink from your Yahoo! ID. Note: Subscriptions for that address will not change, but the address will no longer be linked to a Yahoo! ID. (You can always link it again.) What are the options for each of my group memberships? You have these options for your message delivery for each group: • • • • Individual Emails Messages are delivered one at a time to your email inbox. This is the best option if you want to keep up on the latest posts immediately. Email attachments, if included in a message and allowed by your moderator, will be sent directly to you. Daily Digest Messages are delivered in batches of 25 or daily, whichever comes sooner. This is the best option if you want to receive fewer mail messages and don't need up-tothe minute posts in your inbox. Email attachments are not available in digests. Only Special Announcements This means you will receive email messages only when the group moderator posts a "Special Announcement" message. This is a good option if you want to pass on day-to-day discussion for very busy groups but do want to receive important updates from the group moderator. Keep in mind that usage by each moderator will vary. (The moderator may choose to never use this feature, in which case you would never receive email messages, or may choose to use it frequently.) No Mail / Web Only This option puts email message delivery on hold, for example while you are on vacation. If message archives are available, this option also permits you to read messages at the Yahoo! Groups web site. Note that message archive options are determined by each moderator, and that some groups have no web message archives. To set any of these options, go to My Groups and choose from the drop-down list of message delivery options for your group.