301 E. Lockwood Avenue Webster Groves, MO 63119 314-961-3784 How to Set Up an E-mail Account 1. These instructions are for e-mail accounts using yahoo.com. Signing up with other providers will be similar. 2. Turn the computer on and go to the internet. In the address line, type www.yahoo.com and push the “enter” button. 3. As shown in the sample page below, the Yahoo home page will appear. Near the top of the page under the yellow bar labeled “Web Search” are the words “New here? Sign Up.” Move the cursor to those words and click the left mouse button. 4. The next page, as shown below, is the application for an e-mail account. In the first section, it asks for some simple personal information like your name and birthday. Type your information in the spaces provided. Section 1 Section 2 Section 3 Section 4 5. Section 2 asks you to select a Yahoo ID. Followed by the phrase “@yahoo.com”, this will be your e-mail address. Your ID can be almost anything you like as long as it has 4 to 32 characters and starts with a letter, but it helps if it is fairly easy to remember. Most people use some variation of their name. Yahoo may suggest some ID names for you to use. This is helpful because you will need to use a name that no one else has and you may need to try several phrases to get one that is unique. If you do want to choose your own phrase, after you type it in the space, click the mouse button on the word “check” just to the right of the phrase line. Yahoo will tell you if the name is taken and that you can’t use it. If it is already taken, you will need to try a new phrase. 6. The next step is to choose a password. Again, it helps if this is easy to remember but a complex password is more secure. On the right side of the password space is a gauge that will say how strong or secure the password is. Combinations of letters and numbers are stronger than just letters, for example. The application will ask for the password twice to make sure you typed it correctly. This is important because the password will not be visible to you except as black circles. Write your email address and password in a safe place. Be sure your password is exactly as you typed it, including capitalized or lower case letters; the password “Webster” is not the same as “webster”. 7. Section 3 asks you to provide information in case you forget your ID or password. It first asks you for an alternate e-mail address. If you have one, type it in the first line. If not, leave it blank. The next two parts are security questions that Yahoo will ask you if you forget how to access your e-mail. On the right side of the line that says Select One, there is a blue downward pointing arrow. Move the cursor to it and click the mouse button. A list of questions will appear. Read through them and pick one that is easy for you to answer. Move the cursor down to the one you like – it will turn blue when you are at the right place - and click the mouse button. The question will then appear in the line. If the cursor is not already blinking on the answer line, move it there, click the mouse button and type your answer. Repeat these steps with the second question. 8. Section 4 has a code box with some blurry or wavy letters and numbers. Type those characters in the space just above the box. Sometimes this is hard to do and if you can’t tell what it says you can ask for a new code by clicking the mouse button on the “Try a new code” box. 9. The last step is to say you agree to Yahoo’s policies by clicking on the yellow space “Create My Account”. (If you are interested in knowing what you have agreed to, move the cursor to any of the blue phrases in the sentence that starts with “By clicking the “Create My Account” button below” and click the mouse button. Those pages will appear on the screen. To get back to the application page, you need to look on the screen about 2 inches down from the top. You will see a little red square in the middle of the page. Click the mouse button on it and you will go back to the application.) If you didn’t type the correct characters in the code box, you will be asked to do it again with a new group of characters and will need to click on “Create My Account” again. 10. Yahoo will automatically send you a letter congratulating you for your new e-mail account. If you would like, you can print that page by clicking on the blue words “Print account details”. If you want to use your e-mail right away, click on the yellow “Continue” button on the right. How to Use Your E-mail Account 1. Turn the computer on and go to the internet. In the address line, type www.yahoo.com and push the “enter” button. 2. The Yahoo home page will appear. A sample page is below. On the left side of the screen will be a list with the heading “YAHOO! SITES”. The first item in the list is “Mail”. Move the cursor there and click the left hand mouse button. 3. As shown in the sample page below, on the right side of the next page, it will say “Sign in to Yahoo!”. Type your e-mail address in the line that says “Yahoo! ID”. Your address is the ID name you created plus the phrase: @yahoo.com. Type your password in the password line and click the mouse on the yellow box that says “Sign in”. 4. Your e-mail page will appear. There may be a box introducing you to some of the ways to use your e-mail account. If you click on any of the blue-lettered phrases, you will be shown some helpful instructions. 5. On the left side of your e-mail page (see sample page below), there is a list with the words “Inbox”, “Drafts”, “Sent”, “Spam”, and “Trash”. You can click on each of these words and it will take you to that part of your e-mail account. Clicking on “Inbox” will take you to a list of the emails you have received. “Drafts” are e-mails that you have written and saved but not sent. “Sent” are e-mails that you have sent. “Spam” is like junk mail from the Post Office. “Trash” is e-mails that you have deleted. (The computer saves them to give you a second chance, in case you deleted them by mistake.) 6. Under the word “Trash” is the word “Contacts”. (See the previous sample page.) This section will work like an address book. To put someone in your address book, click on the word “Contacts”. On the next page click on the box with the words “Add Contact” (see sample page below). The resulting page (see second sample page below) will have boxes to fill in with information such as name, address, and e-mail address. You can fill in every box if you like, but all you need to fill in are the First and Last name boxes and the e-mail address box. Click on the word “Save” in the orange box when you are finished. You can add more names by clicking on the “Add Contact” box again or if you are finished, you can click on the “x” in the blue box that says “Contacts”. 7. You are now ready to write an e-mail. Under the words “Yahoo! Mail” on the left side of the screen is a box with the word: ”New”. Click on the word. The resulting page is shown below. To choose your recipient(s), click on the box with the word “To”. A list of the people on your contact list will appear. To choose one, click on the name and then click “OK”. To choose more than one, press and hold the shift key while you are clicking. The address of the person(s) you chose will then appear in the box to the right of “To”. You may also just type an address in the box. Be sure to include the entire address including the part after the “@”. Below “To” is a “CC” box. You can add contacts to this area in the same way and they will be sent the e-mail too. Below “To” and “CC” is the word “Subject”. If you like, you may type the topic of your e-mail in that space. To write your e-mail, move the cursor to the large blank area and type your message. When you are done, send the e-mail to your recipient by clicking on the word “Send”. If you decide not to send the message, click on “Cancel”. If you want to finish the message later, you can save it by clicking on “Save Draft”. (When you want to finish the letter, you can get to it by clicking on the word: “Drafts”.) Message area 8. As shown in the sample pages below, to see if someone has sent you an e-mail, click on “Inbox” or “Check Mail”. The number of new e-mails will be in parentheses after “Inbox”. The next screen will have a list of your e-mails – who they are from and the subject. New e-mails that you have not read will be in Bold print. You can then click on any item in the list and read the message. The e-mail message will be below the list. If you would like it to be larger, click on “full view” in the upper right hand corner of the e-mail message. Once you have read an e-mail, you can keep it by clicking on another message, on “Inbox” or on “Check Mail”. You can delete it by clicking on the “Delete” button. When you delete the message, the computer will take you back to your e-mail list. Unread e-mail Read e-mail 9. To answer an e-mail, click on the word “Reply” in the box next to the “Delete” box. There is a small arrow to the right of the box. If you click on it, you will have the option of choosing “reply to all”, meaning everyone in your contacts list. Normally you will just click on the “Reply” box and that will send your reply only to the person who sent you the e-mail. Automatically, the computer will put the address of the person who sent the e-mail to you in the “To” box and will provide space to write your reply above the message you received. Type your message there. If you want to send your reply to additional people, you can click on the “To” and the “Cc” boxes and add other addresses. To send your reply, click on the “Send” button. Your reply will go here. The e-mail message to you would be here. 10. There are many additional ways to use your e-mail account such as organizing your e-mails into folders, attaching and sending photos and checking your spelling. Practicing and experimenting with all the features is a good way to learn. If you need help, please ask us. 11. When you are finished, end your session by clicking on the words: “Sign Out”.
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