March 27, 2007 6:18 PM PDT

Yahoo Mail to offer unlimited storage

By Elinor Mills
Staff Writer, CNET News

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Yahoo will begin offering unlimited storage for its free Web-based e-mail in May, the company announced late Tuesday. The move makes Yahoo the first of the major free e-mail providers to offer unlimited storage, but it likely will not be the last.

Yahoo currently offers 1 gigabyte for its free mail service and 2GB for its premium fee-based service. Google's free Gmail service offers more than 2.5GB of storage, and Windows Live Hotmail offers 2GB for free.

"We are watching the trend lines of how people are using e-mail...and they are sending more photos and videos and rich media," said John Kremer, vice president of Yahoo Mail.

Google began the storage wars in earnest when it launched Gmail in April 2004 with 1GB of storage. Yahoo Mail, which launched in 1997 with 4MB of storage, upgraded to 100MB of storage shortly after Google's Gmail announcement, bumped it up to 250MB in late 2004, and then up to 1GB in 2005.

With 250 million users, Yahoo Mail is the largest global e-mail provider and the largest in the U.S., according to comScore.

The unlimited storage will begin rolling out globally in May, and Yahoo expects to have all of its customers covered within a month, except for China and Japan. "We will continue working with these markets on their storage plans," Kremer said.

See more CNET content tagged:
Yahoo! Mail, e-mail company, Yahoo! Inc., Gmail, Google Inc.

Add a Comment (Log in or register) 36 comments (Showing first 20 comments)

unlimited yahoo mail storage
by miqaelee March 27, 2007 6:58 PM PDT: I consider Yahoo mail the best of the rest, the extra storage sounds great, especially with all the jpegs and mpegs we send.....now what about the final version of the new yahoo mail including the promising Photo Mail which has been stalled in a beta version far too long? *~*; Reply to this comment View reply
Processing

Nice, but...
by timkennett March 27, 2007 7:31 PM PDT: I decided to go with Gmail. I wanted to like Yahoo Mail, but it
lacked some features that I really came to enjoy in Gmail. I like
Gmail's conversation/threading and the ability to reply to mail from
the same address that a message was sent to. But, I'm happy to see
Yahoo lead the way with unlimited storage. Perhaps it'll cause
others to do the same.; Reply to this comment

needs more improvements
by HlLLARY CLITON March 27, 2007 7:39 PM PDT: I'd like to see better SPAM filters and less lag, at times during the day Yahoo email is slooooooow.; Reply to this comment

FREE STORAGE VIA EMAIL
by enscorp March 27, 2007 9:25 PM PDT: Wonderful. Now I have a free backup system for the 60 GB of images I have on my HD. All i have to do is send them to myself at Yahoo, and I have Unlimited Permanent Backed-Up storage at Yahoo in case my System goes belly up.

I think Yahoo et.al. (groogle, Microsoft and others whol follow) will find that they are shooting themselves in the foot by offering this.

Oh well, sometimes BAD descisions are made. I know I will take FULL ADVANTAGE of this offer.

Thanks Yahoooooooooooooooo; Reply to this comment View reply
Processing

Not the first One
by sudeshp March 27, 2007 10:12 PM PDT: Rediff.com, India's largest email service provider, already started offering unlimited storage about a month back. Rediff has a terrific following in India and remains India's only surviving portal.; Reply to this comment

What happens to Mail Plus?
by bingobob March 28, 2007 1:08 AM PDT: Given that one of the perks of subscribing to Mail Plus was the extra storage, I wonder how Yahoo intends to offset that loss to its paying users.

http://ars.barelyaverage.com; Reply to this comment View reply
Processing

I hope Google does the same soon.
by mrc77 March 28, 2007 3:31 AM PDT: I have two Gmail accounts that are almost full because I send a lot of mp3s and video to friends and relatives. It's a great way to store files, too. I don't like to delete anything, except spam, so unlimited storage would be really good for me. I don't like Yahoo's interface, but I love Gmail's so I hope Google will copy this move right away.; Reply to this comment

AOL is unlimited and has been free since August 2006
by snowjn March 28, 2007 5:32 AM PDT: See unlimited storage listed as a member benefit

http://about.aol.com/memberbenefits

You should check your facts before claiming anything is first of it's kind.; Reply to this comment View reply
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Yahoo Mail the next Napster...?
by imacpwr March 28, 2007 6:12 AM PDT: Just upload your whole mp3 collection to your Yahoo Mail account and forward the files to anyone who wants a copy..? Sounds simple..; Reply to this comment View reply
Processing

Unlimited Spam Is More Like It
by Stating March 28, 2007 8:55 AM PDT: Thirty spam emails in one day. Fake pills, mortgage loans, crud and more crud. Does Terry Smell know what REALLY matters to Yahoo customers? No, because if he did he would focus on truly improving Yahoo Mail, not just adding unnecessary "me too" features".; Reply to this comment View all 3 replies
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Free AOL Mail has unlimited storage
by roybenyoseph March 28, 2007 10:45 AM PDT: Upfront disclaimer ? I work for AOL and lead the Mail Product Management & Business teams.

With all the talk about Yahoo and Gmail, I thought I'd jump in and note that AOL has offered unlimited email storage to its users since 2005. And AOL is free to everyone via AOL.com.; Reply to this comment View reply
Processing

Stop the crashing FIRST!!!
by Mehboob Alam March 28, 2007 11:16 AM PDT: I'm having an incredible number of timeouts, error messages, apology messages.. ever since the beta Web 2.0 interface was rolled out, and I dont even use that.

The standard Yahoo Mail service seems to have gone to pot. Is this a way to get people to move to the new UI which is slooowww...; Reply to this comment

LOOK at what I found:
by btljooz March 28, 2007 5:29 PM PDT: http://news.com.com/Yahoo+opens+up+e-mail+APIs+to+outsiders/2100-1032_3-6171378.html?tag=ne.fd.mnbc; Reply to this comment

Now that yahoo mail is unlimited dont be limited by the 10MB attachmentsize
by tomerbd1 April 2, 2007 3:58 AM PDT: Now that Yahoo is unlimited in mailbox size, dont be limited by the attachment 10MB file size, you can send any file with any file size to your email account with a simple right click and send file (including yahoo). The freeware will automatically split and merge the file. You can also send whole folders to your email account as it will zip them up. The software is called Backup To EMail and you can download it from http://emailer.zapto.org; Reply to this comment

Today is May 1, Yahoo Email still limited
by bgawk May 1, 2007 5:43 AM PDT: Any more info when Yahoo Email is unlimited?; Reply to this comment View reply
Processing

May 31, 2007 - NOW UNLIMITED
by min.darren May 31, 2007 1:44 AM PDT: My e-mail had a little yahoo guy come up and explode the storage counter. YEA!; Reply to this comment


by fortunindonesia June 7, 2008 6:57 PM PDT: No Coment is now; Reply to this comment


by waleed_ironman- June 11, 2008 5:37 AM PDT: welcome; Reply to this comment


by waleed_ironman- June 11, 2008 5:40 AM PDT: welcome iron man; Reply to this comment

See all 36 Comments >>

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