How to Get Instant Yahoo Mail Alerts of New Messages

Email & Messaging

Updated June 14, 2019

When we get a new message in our Yahoo Mail account, we like to know instantly. One way is to check the website repeatedly.

Another, much more comfortable way is to have your browser do that on its own—with a little help from Yahoo Mail. You can configure some settings on the website to send a desktop alert through the browser whenever a new email message arrives in your Yahoo! Mail account. Here's how.

Enable Desktop Notifications in Your Browser

To get alerts from Yahoo, enable desktop notifications in your browser.

Google Chrome

Click the Chrome menu button.
Click Settings.
Scroll to the bottom of the page and click Advanced to show more options.
Under the Privacy and Security heading, click Site Settings.
Click Notifications.
Check that the switch next to Ask before sending is on. This setting will activate notifications and give you control over each site you visit.
To manually grant permission to a website, click Add under the Allow heading, and then type the site address.

Check under the Block heading to make sure Yahoo isn't listed. If it is, click the three dots on the right side and click Remove.
You don't have to add sites to your Allow list manually. They'll ask for permission the first time you visit them.

Mozilla Firefox

Click the menu in the upper-right corner of the window, and then click Preferences.
Under the Privacy & Security menu, click Settings next to Notifications.
If Yahoo Mail appears on this screen, make sure the permission is set to Allow.
If Yahoo Mail does not have Allow next to it, click the pull-down menu and click that option.

Safari

Select Safari > Preferences from the menu in Safari.
Go to the Notifications tab.
Make sure Allow websites to ask for permission to send push notifications is checked.
If Yahoo Mail appears in the window above, make sure it's set to Allow.

Get Instant Yahoo Mail Alerts of New Messages in Your Browser

With your browser configured, here's how to have it show an alert as soon as new mail appears in your Yahoo Mail inbox:

Open Yahoo Mail in a web browser.
Click the gear icon in the upper-right corner.
Click More Settings.
Click Notifications.
Click the 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.