Yahoo just killed the password. 
 
 The online company today announced a revamped version of its Yahoo Mail app for iOS and Android, allowing users to log into their email accounts securely and without ever having to remember a password or enter one to gain access. 
 
 The password killer, called Yahoo Account Key, works like this: Users enter their user name and are then sent a push alert to their smartphone letting them know someone is trying to log in to their account and from what computer. With one tap, the user can accept and will be taken to their email inbox -- all without ever using a password. 
 
 "Passwords are usually simple to hack and easy to forget. Account Key streamlines the sign-in process with a secure, elegant and easy-to-use interface that makes access as easy as tapping a button," Dylan Casey, vice president of product management at Yahoo said in a blog post. "It’s also more secure than a traditional password because once you activate Account Key -- even if someone gets access to your account info -- they can’t sign in." 
 
 Yahoo rolled out another password killer earlier this year, letting users get SMS codes to use to log into their account instead of having to remember a password. ||||| Even better than looks however, is Yahoo Mail's new smarts. Take the new contacts card, for example. When you tap on a person's photo, you'll immediately see their contact details even if he or she is not in your local address book. That's because they're all automatically culled from their connected Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter profiles, and even from their email signatures if they contain alternate email addresses or phone numbers. The contacts card also helpfully shows the history of email exchanges between the two of you and a list of what it thinks are related contacts (perhaps mutual friends or co-workers). The latter, Delgado says, is especially helpful if you're trying to remember who the person is and how you met them. 
 
 More powerful than that is Yahoo Mail's brand new contextual smart search engine. Type in the first letters of someone's name, and it'll instantly suggest the most likely contact. For example, say you entered in your co-worker's name in the recipient field and then proceeded to type in a couple more letters. It'll automatically suggest the name of other co-workers you've usually emailed together -- a feature that's been on Gmail for awhile now. What's impressive with Yahoo Mail's version though, is that it's even more contextual than that. Say you typed in your co-worker's personal email address instead because you want to organize a non-work-related movie night. The next couple of letters will bring up a list of people with personal email addresses rather than their work address. "If the user has to type in more than a couple characters, we haven't done our job," says Bonforte. "It's these little things that when users get used to them, they sort of feel blind without them." 
 
 Ah, but that's not all. Say you're doing a search for messages from a particular friend. While traditional mail clients typically only fetch what's locally on the device or the top 100 or so messages on the server, Yahoo Mail will search your entire inbox even from months or years ago. And yes, it'll search through all those multiple third-party accounts too. That's because the search is server-side powered, not client-side. It's not just messages either; you'll be able to see all the images and files your friend has ever sent you, and all the images and files that you've ever sent to them. 
 
 "We think we have the most advanced search in a mobile email client out there," says Delgado. "We truly understand the structure of the messages, the files and the photos that are in your inbox." 
 
 There are a few other neat features with composing new messages. You can easily include multiple photos from your camera roll to a single message and get them to render in line by default, or you can attach them like traditional attachments by hitting the plus sign at the bottom. For the Android app, you can also browse your phone's system folders or your SD card to find the file or image you want to attach. But what's particularly powerful here is that because Yahoo Mail indexes every single message that you've ever received or sent, you can also easily search for and attach any photo you've received without having to download it and attach it -- all attachments are done server-side, even if it's an 80MB file. 
 
 If you often use your email to send yourself reminders, you can simply long-press the compose button and your own email address will automatically appear in the To field and the cursor will be the subject line. Type the note, hit send and you'll get those reminders. "About 20 percent of our users frequently email themselves," says Bonforte. "It's also aware of all your email addresses ... emailing yourself from any one of the accounts will be considered an email to yourself." 
 
 And if you have the new iPhone 6s or 6s Plus, you'll be able to 3D Touch the app icon to "peek" into the app and compose a new message, send a note to yourself, conduct a search or go straight into the inbox. For those with iOS9, you'll be able to search for anyone on Yahoo Mail right from Spotlight. Tap on any of the Spotlight results, and it'll switch to the app and email message in question. 
 
 Of course, Yahoo Mail has a steep hill to climb in order to defeat the juggernaut that is Gmail, but with innovations like Account Key, the willingness to support multiple third-party accounts, and its huge server-side Smart search chops, the new Yahoo Mail is certainly worth a look. The new app should be available on both Android and iOS today, while you're able to add Account Key to your account starting today as well. ||||| SAN FRANCISCO -- Yahoo is ditching passwords in favor of a more sophisticated method of verifying users in a major upgrade to its 18-year-old email service. 
 
 The Sunnyvale company on Thursday introduced a "password-free" account key that sends a push notification to mobile devices asking users to confirm their identities before checking their emails. 
 
 The new authentication method, which is optional and part of a broader revamp that makes Yahoo Mail smarter and faster on smartphones, pushes Yahoo to the forefront in email security but also risks alienating longtime users accustomed to logging in with passwords. 
 
 "It's pretty controversial to get rid of passwords because consumers actually like them," said Avivah Litan, a security analyst at research firm Gartner. 
 
 But Litan agreed with Yahoo executives that most passwords are weak and worth replacing because they are easily forgotten, easily compromised and typically shared across multiple personal accounts. 
 
 Yahoo's solution is designed to be simpler than the typical two-factor authentication process, which is safer than conventional passwords but has a learning curve. Yahoo's new process takes little effort, but requires users to have an Internet-connected phone or wristwatch handy, even if they are on a desktop. 
 
 "It takes getting used to," said Jeff Bonforte, Yahoo's head of communications products, in a press event Wednesday in downtown San Francisco. "Patterns die hard.'' 
 
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 Yahoo also uses other tools such as network analytics -- what it knows of a user's typical behavior -- to keep a user logged in unless unusual activity raises a red flag. 
 
 "Everyone will wait and see how it goes," Litan said. "If this goes well, I think a lot of other companies will follow because passwords are so antiquated and create a false sense of security." 
 
 This is Yahoo Mail's first major revision in two years. Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer, who in her previous job at Google had helped usher in the rise of Gmail, took some cues from that widely popular service in the 2013 redesign but outraged some loyal Yahoo users who were confused and annoyed by the new features. 
 
 Most of Thursday's changes are far more aesthetically subtle, though the computing behind them is powerful. The new tools allow for speedier searching of archived content in the Yahoo Mail application on Apple and Android devices, and automatically suggest after just one or two typed letters the most likely recipients of an email a user is composing. 
 
 "We think we have the most advanced search in a mobile mail client," said Fernando Delgado, a Yahoo senior director of product management. 
 
 Other improvements include a new feature for so-called "me-mailers" -- the roughly 20 percent of Yahoo users who frequently send emails to themselves with to-do lists or other notes -- that helps them create a notebook of their files. There's also a feature that adds icons for every verified user -- company logos for emails from well-known banks, stores, airlines and other services -- and automatically creates initials for everyone else. 
 
 Yahoo Mail, once the leader in Web-based email providers and a crucial springboard for traffic to the company's finance, sports and news websites, has been playing catch-up since Google launched its upstart email service in 2004 and swiftly grew to become the leader. A recent report from market researcher comScore figures show Yahoo Mail and Gmail were equals as recently as 2013, but Gmail now has tens of millions more viewers. 
 
 Another Yahoo upgrade is a "multiple mailbox" manager that places separate email accounts under one umbrella tool, allowing Yahoo Mail users to access their emails from AOL or Microsoft's Hotmail and Outlook.com and giving Yahoo an even larger body of email content to scan for targeted advertising dollars. Gmail is not included in the mix, though ongoing talks with Google could fold it in later, Bonforte said. 
 
 Contact Matt O'Brien at 408-920-5011. Follow him at Twitter.com/Mattoyeah.
– Yahoo Mail is turning 18, and it's marking the occasion with a big move: no more passwords. The company announced Thursday it's dumping what one Gartner security analyst calls the "antiquated" process of punching in a password to access messages and replacing it with a push notification sent to a user's mobile device, the San Jose Mercury News reports. Once the user gets the notification, he or she taps once to gain entry to the Yahoo Mail inbox, ABC News notes. "Passwords are usually simple to hack and easy to forget," Dylan Casey, Yahoo VP of product management, writes in a blog post describing the new "Account Key" feature. "Account Key streamlines the sign-in process … [and is] more secure than a traditional password because once you activate Account Key—even if someone gets access to your account info—they can't sign in." The optional authentication method is part of a broader revamp of Yahoo Mail, which includes faster search options of archived mail on Apple and Android devices, an email "umbrella" that allows users to access other email accounts (though not Gmail), and an organizational option for "me-mailers," or people who send themselves reminders via email, per the Mercury News. Some experts, however, feel longtime users may be freaked out without their passwords. "Consumers actually like them," the Gartner analyst tells the Mercury News, though he concedes people often forget their passwords, create weak ones, or use the same one across many accounts, setting them up for hacking. For those who feel the new authentication system isn't secure enough, Casey says it may someday use fingerprints and face recognition for an added layer of protection, Engadget notes.