Email, Messaging, & Video Calls > Email How to Get Instant Yahoo Mail Alerts of New Messages Find out about new emails as soon as they arrive By Heinz Tschabitscher Heinz Tschabitscher Writer University of Vienna A former freelance contributor who has reviewed hundreds of email programs and services since 1997. lifewire's editorial guidelines Updated on May 16, 2021 Tweet Share Email Tweet Share Email Email Yahoo! Mail Gmail What to Know Go to Settings > More Settings > Notifications. Turn on Desktop notifications. This article explains how to tell Yahoo Mail to send notifications when you receive new email. The instructions apply regardless of browser. Turn On Alerts of New Messages in Yahoo Mail Here's how to configure Yahoo Mail for instant new mail notifications: Open Yahoo Mail in a web browser. Click the gear icon in the upper-right corner. Click More Settings. Click Notifications. Click the Desktop notifications switch to turn it to on/blue. You may receive a request to OK notifications from this website. If you do, click Allow. Close and re-open Yahoo Mail in your browser. Keep it open to let it send you notifications. How to Get Instant Yahoo Mail Alerts of New Messages via IMAP To get near-instant notifications of new messages that arrive in your Yahoo Mail account, you can also: Set up the Yahoo Mail account in an email program or mail checker using IMAP (with IMAP IDLE enabled). Make sure the email program is running and set to display alerts for new messages. Was this page helpful? Thanks for letting us know! Get the Latest Tech News Delivered Every Day Subscribe Tell us why! Other Not enough details Hard to understand Submit