Elwood Edwards, Voice of AOL's 'You've Got Mail,' Dies At 74

Elwood Edwards, the voice of AOL's "You've Got Mail" greeting, has died at age 74 following a long illness, according to local Ohio news station WKYC. "He worked at 3News for many years as graphics guru, camera operator, and general jack-of-all-trades, yet it was a somewhat random opportunity in 1989 that earned him international fame." From the report: That year, Elwood received $200 from the then-unknown America Online, merely because his wife worked at a predecessor company. He was asked to simply record four voiceover lines:

- "Welcome"
- "You've Got Mail"
- "Files done"
- "Goodbye"

Of course, the company better known as AOL blew up, and millions around the world would hear Elwood's voice telling them "You've Got Mail" every time they logged on to the internet. Despite his face not being visible, Elwood still achieved minor celebrity status. In 2015, he even appeared on "The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon" to utter the famous greeting as well as other audience-suggested phrases.

Were his last words

[Anonymous Coward]

...goodbye?

Re:

[NoWayNoShapeNoForm]

...goodbye?

+1 Funny ... if I had Mod points

Re:

[antdude]

Ditto. :P

Still used in AOL web mail.

[dicobalt]

Yup, still does it.

In memoriam

[UnCivil Liberty]

{S Goodbye

Drove for Uber

[Kunedog]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

other voice

[hackertourist]

Never having had AOL, I tend to associate the phrase "You've got mail" with Meg Ryan's voice instead (thanks to the eponymous movie).

Re:

[Darinbob]

I didn't even see the movie, or use AOL, so I honestly have no idea what either sounded like.

I can survive

[TTL0]

But if the Bluetooth lady goes through I am done.

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[tlhIngan]

But if the Bluetooth lady goes through I am done.

I've always wondered about that one. I wonder if it's just some Chinese worker on the assembly line who said it and it got programmed in or what. I'm presuming it's just some PCM samples the chip uses and not actually burned into a ROM or something.

Given most products from well known brands use some form of beep or other tone to be language-independent, it's a wonder why people haven't hacked the things to replace it with more interesting sounds.

(Given a lot

This guy was verry cool and friendly

[mmiscool]

I reached out and was able to track him down a few years ago and got him to record a few lines. He recorded "You've got toast" and "You've got charcoal" for me. The toaster project never went anywhere but here are the wav files. https://drive.google.com/drive... [google.com]

Re:

[kalpol]

This is great, thanks.

The problem

[Malay2bowman]

When he did those lines on the tonight show, I was very underwhelmed. He almost sounded like some random person that could do a somewhat approximation of the AOL voice. And the problem was the lack of acoustics and low bitrate that gave those .WAV files that distinct sound.

Also voiced "You've got pictures"

[kriston]

Also voiced "You've got pictures" for the YGP service.

Sadly, You've Got Pictures only went into production for a short time after years and years of development. It was developed for and only worked in the AOL client (this was while the web was still fledgling).

I actually use the "You've got Mail" soundbyte

[jerryjnormandin]

Bummer.. I have been using the "You've got mail" soundbyte as a mail notification forever. I still use it. I alternate between "You've got mail" and the Austin Powers Shagphone ringtone.

Re:

[Darinbob]

What, no In Like Flynt ringtones? https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]