At the top of the Yahoo! Messenger window lurks an often overlooked, but handy piece of the interface: the contact search bar. Aptly named, it lets you quickly find a friend in your contact list and start a conversation with them, whether it’s over IM, email, SMS or voice. And even if someone’s not in your contact list or address book, you can just enter a Yahoo! ID, phone number or email to get started.
A handy shortcut for accessing the contact search bar is the Windows + Y keyboard shortcut (the Windows key is that one in the lower left that looks like a waving flag). No matter where you are on your computer, this will bring up the Messenger window with the cursor in the contact search bar. This even works when your Messenger window is closed.

When you type a friend’s name in the search bar, the available communication options will appear in a drop down menu below the bar. What’s available depends on what information you have stored for that friend in your address book. For example, if you have a friend’s mobile phone number, you can click to send an SMS message to their phone or click to call their mobile using Yahoo! Voice. Clicking “Send Email” will start a new email message to them in your computer’s default email program.
You can use the contact search bar to start a conversation with anyone, even if they’re not in your address book. I was searching for London hotels the other day and needed to call one of them. I wanted to use my low calling rate on Yahoo! Voice, so I copied the phone number from the hotel website, hit Windows +Y on my keyboard and pasted the number into the contact search bar. I then selected “Call Phone Number”. Ring, ring – I was connected.
And to do justice to the “search” part of its name, you can also start a web search from the bar. Just enter any term and click “Search the web” in the drop down menu. I did this by accident once when I typed in a friend’s name – I learned all kinds of new things about him!
The search bar also works within the Address Book view. Just switch modes from your contact list to address book by clicking the Address Book icon () above the bar, then start your search. When a friend’s contact info comes up, you can click to IM, call a phone number, SMS or email. The difference with the address book view is that the actual phone numbers, email addresses and Yahoo! IDs are visible, and you can click to access your friend’s full listing.
written by YahooAngel
\\ tags: Yahoo! Messenger