Sayonara to signing off
June 20, 2008 on 2:30 pm | In Features, Mobile, Voice |
IM is great for keeping in constant contact with your friends. But eventually, we all have to sign off and as a result, we’re no longer reachable.
But now, with a couple of features available in Yahoo! Messenger 9.0 Beta, you no longer have to sign off and drop off. You can have incoming IMs and voice calls forwarded to your mobile phone. Here’s how it works…
Above your Yahoo! Messenger 9.0 contact list you’ll notice two new buttons – an icon of a small mobile phone and a Yahoo! Voice button. Click on the mobile phone icon and select “Set Up Mobile Device”. A small window will appear where you can register your mobile phone with Yahoo! Messenger.
Once registered, you can turn on IM forwarding. After signing out of Yahoo! Messenger, you will still appear online to your friends but with an “I’m Mobile” status message. Friends can then IM you and the messages will be forwarded to your mobile phone as text messages (SMS). Reply to the SMS from your phone and your friend will receive it in Messenger. So even when you’re away from your computer, you can still receive and reply to IMs.
To enable IM forwarding whenever you sign out, select the “Always Sign in to [your mobile number]” from the mobile phone icon. If you prefer to enable it occasionally, go to the Messenger menu when you’re ready to sign out and choose “Sign in to [your mobile number]”. Find out more about IM forwarding
The same kind of forwarding can be set up for voice calls. If you’re signed out and a friend tries to call you via PC-to-PC or on your Phone In number, the call can be immediately forwarded to another phone you have (mobile or landline). A Phone Out account is required. When calls are forwarded to you, they are subject to the standard per minute rates of our Phone Out service.
To enable call forwarding, click the “Yahoo! Voice” button above your contact list and select “Set Up Call Forwarding”. Indicate which number you want your incoming calls forwarded to and you’re done. Once you set up call forwarding, it will even forward calls when you are signed into Yahoo! Messenger. So if you prefer to receive calls in Messenger when you’re signed in, just return to the button and select “Call Forwarding > Disabled”. Find out more about call forwarding
Sarah Bacon
Product Manager
i looked for these new features described in last few posts on 9.0beta but their not there im using local canada
Comment by Farstrider — June 20, 2008 #
Might be a nice touch if my 8.x version of Yahoo messenger didn’t disconnect arbitrarily throughout the day.
Comment by hmmmm — June 20, 2008 #
finally got it to work by uninstalling it & reinstall the latest beta copy witch fixed the error i get when i exit it.
Comment by FarStrider — June 20, 2008 #
I just downloading yahoo messenger for all star users and it is really cool, not to mention my favorite color. I will give it a try
Comment by Lavender Queen Liz1 — June 22, 2008 #
wheres the uk option for regestering ur mobile?? :-s
Comment by alex — June 22, 2008 #
That’s a great feature.
I wanted to say that I still see people coming online whom I once had in my list but have deleted them now. Could you please fix this bug? Thanks.
Comment by Jaunty Mellifluous — June 24, 2008 #
kindly provide details for deleting i m on sms facility?
Comment by reema — June 25, 2008 #
[…] 2008 — Laura Varteressian It worked for me! I was able to decipher this headline from the Yahoo! Messenger blog thanks to my second-grade teacher, Mrs. Belcher, who taught me a bit about reading […]
Pingback by Thank heavens for Hooked on Phonics « Terribly Write — June 25, 2008 #
Duly noted Terribly Write - thanks for the heads up!
Sarah Bacon
Comment by Administrator — June 25, 2008 #
What I don’t get this and I don’t want to screw my IM up
Comment by Ryan23185 — June 26, 2008 #
I have a MAC and would like to shut off my IM Mobile feature but I don’t know how. What’s the deal? I keep getting texts from people I don’t know, and I have to pay for those!
Comment by sigp2301 — June 29, 2008 #
Yahoo IM 8 won’t let me stay online now. Why would I try something else more frustrating?
Comment by Ann Oyed — June 30, 2008 #
Hi sigp2301,
Try this help article:
http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/messenger/mac/mac3/mobile/mstamfrwrd.html
Sarah Bacon
Comment by Administrator — June 30, 2008 #
kindly provide details on how to remove ” im mobile icon” and “im on sms” status?
Comment by annie — June 30, 2008 #
My wife’s job has Windows Live Messenger, which works fine with my Yahoo IM8, but IM9 and IM Vista have issues keeping a connection with her. Where would I report this issue to?
Comment by Alan Stephens — July 2, 2008 #
I am signed up for phone in service and use it frequently to forward calls to my landline so that I do not have to be near the computer to recieve calls from phone in. Is there any way to set call forwarding as the default. If I turn off my computer the call forwarding automatically disbles. I travel frwuently between states and thereofre when I am offline calls do not get forwarded and I can only select that oprion when the computer is connected.
Thank for any help.
Comment by andrew richards — August 7, 2008 #
Hi Andrew,
I am Thyaga Vasudevan, the PM for the Y! Voice product. You don’t need to be logged in to receive calls from Phone In. We are doing server side call forwarding. i.e. regardless of online status or login status, call forwarding should work.
Can you please try this again and let us know?
Thanks,
Thyaga
Comment by Thyaga Vasudevan — August 8, 2008 #
Hi Thyaga,
I am experiencing the same problems as Andrew. The callforwarding is automatically disabled whenever I shut down my laptop, and the calls don’t get forwarded. When I next log into Yahoo Messenger, the callforwarding has to be automatically reset.
Contacting the 24/7 help does not turn up any viable solutions.
Thank you for your help
Comment by Pearlyn — August 12, 2008 #