Yahoo! is getting ready to delete inactive Yahoo! email accounts and you can grab your favorite Yahoo ID emails you always wanted. It is a fresh move to clear millions of inactive accounts in their database, especially since Yahoo! has been one of the earliest email services and many users might have moved to other popular email services like Gmail and Outlook.
I remember once earlier they had offered dot email addresses and popular aliases like ymail and rocketmail. Ymail was a popular take on Gmail and in fact it is still available.
Old Yahoo! ID Available
Usually when email accounts are disabled, the general public cannot re-register the account name, maybe because they want to preserve the history (for example like Google Inactive Account Manager), in case users decide to come back. Under the new Yahoo! services revamp, Yahoo! announced that after 15 July 2013, they will flush out all inactive user accounts which have not tracked a single login in the last 12 months – and make them available for the general public to register again.
This is a great opportunity to register your favorite Yahoo! ID which you always wanted and get an email like yourname@yahoo.com. This a good move by Yahoo! to attract new users and improve the numbers of their active users. Note that the Yahoo! ID not only gives you a cool new email ID, it lets your account nickname be used across the entire range of Yahoo! services like Flickr, News, Weather etc.
Will they release the accounts instantly? It seems they will collect all the requests and by Mid August will release the Yahoo! ID to the new owners.
In mid July, anyone can have a shot at scoring the Yahoo! ID they want. In mid August, users who staked a claim on certain IDs can come to Yahoo! to discover which one they got
For Inactive Yahoo! users
On the other hand, if you are an infrequent Yahoo! user, its a good idea to login to your account once, else Yahoo! will delete your account, and anyone can register it. And its not only your Yahoo! email which goes, its your access across all Yahoo! services. Login today.
For Email List Managers
Since millions of Yahoo! email addresses will be deleted, you should check your email subscriber lists as all these inactive Yahoo! emails will bounce. It also means you needs to monitor your email list closely after 15 July to look for such accounts and save money as most paid list managers charge for subscriber numbers. Also if your email feed subscriber counts drop … it should not be surprising.