Yahoo! "Unlimited" email has a limit after all

by Ian Dumych Apr 8th 2008

Yahoo! Mail has been one of the most popular free web-based email services ever since its humble beginnings. Not too long ago, Yahoo! started to feel the pressure from the brazen upstart Gmail, which offers a gradually increasing mailbox limit. Not to be outdone, Yahoo! introduced an unlimited mailbox size, promising that users would "never need to delete a message again."

As many of us expected, there is a limit, and it has been found. The Wall Street Journal has found a bug in the system that renders a account inoperable if it has too many messages in one folder. According to their findings, 55,000 or so is the maximum that the system can handle. Yahoo! is working on fixing the issue (of course), but be sure to point and laugh in the mean time.

Tags: Email, Glitches, Snark, Webmail, Yahoo

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Seshu said 7:24PM on 4-08-2008

Exactly, of lately (for about 2months now) I get a new mail notification in my Yahoo! Messenger with the from and subject details at the botton right corner of the screen. But when I click on it and go to the mail and see, there is no new mail and there is not even such mail with the from and subject combination existing in my InBox. Most of the time, these mails are directly coming to me from my subscriptions like SEO and others...
I wish Yahoo! fixes this bug (and myriad other bugs, that exist and they already know about) as soon as possible and give a second life to all those emails I could not read.

Shiva said 7:36PM on 4-08-2008

...what? This is news? This should be filed under, "Deliberate attempt by douchebags to point out obscure flaw in order to say 'Nyah nyah'".

55k messages in one folder and it crashes? Good. Natural selection works in the digital realm too. You shouldn't be allowed to have email if you can't sort it.

koolio said 7:39PM on 4-08-2008

That's why I stopped using Yahoo Mail almost a year now. It's too slow, sometimes I got my email 30min later.

Bucfann said 9:39PM on 4-08-2008

50k + emails? Forget the one folder thing, if youve got close to 50,000 emails then you got issues. You must subscribe to more junk mail than I can imagine. Why even save it? Why wouldnt you want some sort of order and 'cleanliness' to your email. You will never sort through or read again those 50,000 emails. Most of them are probably useless junk anyways.

Quikboy said 11:32PM on 4-08-2008

Honestly, do most people ever go above 5GB?

Most of my e-mails are just notifications from other web services about a new comment, an update, and rather simple things that could just simply be an IM alert, instead of cluttering my inbox. There's something called Live Alerts, that I wished more web services would adopt : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Live_Alerts

I also delete simple messages, that don't really have too much importance. Why bother cluttering up your inbox?

The only thing I keep are things like passwords from websites, the best messages from friends, and that's about it.

I've had my Live Hotmail account for several years, and I'm still at 1% of my free 5GB.

I'm guess Y! knows that "most" users are also like me, and rarely hit their specified storage limit, so they "claim" their accounts are unlimited, even though they're really just storing it onto space that most users like I will never bother reaching up to.

gojeda said 5:30AM on 4-09-2008

Ian Dumych: "Yahoo! is working on fixing the issue (of course), but be sure to point and laugh in the mean time."

Boy - we sure have some geniuses writing for Download Squad these days.

Mark said 11:28AM on 4-09-2008

I think I'd sooner point and laugh at anyone that actually has over 50,000 messages in a single folder.

RP said 10:00PM on 4-09-2008

:-) Exactly!

Joe Beaulaurier said 1:34PM on 4-10-2008

Anyone who has used the flexible and speedy search capability in Y! Mail understands why there's no need to delete anything which could be useful in the future. Eliminates the need for folders, tagging, etc.

@shiva - Ditto on using a service flaw as an excuse to make it out to be an intended limitation/conspiracy. Lame and becoming SOP around here for anything not about Google or Apple products.

Faythalie said 5:37PM on 4-17-2008

I actually had that issue, I had over 70,000 Email saved over the years, and yes it is possible. I had them saved from emails passed between my grandfather and I whom since has passed, Thousands of them and now they are all gone. So yes it is possible. Its just so sad to lose all those memories. I can never get those back.

Klink258 said 4:27PM on 4-29-2008

Not only is this old, but...
In one folder? Why not use multiple folders then?

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