What is email?

Electronic mail (also known as email or e-mail) is one of the most commonly used services on the Internet, allowing people to send messages to one or more recipients. Email was invented by Ray Tomlinson in 1972.

How email works

Email is based around the use of electronic mailboxes. When an email is sent, the message is routed from server to server, all the way to the recipient's email server.

To use a real-world analogy, the mail server acts as a mailbox, meaning that it stores messages (as much as its volume will allow) until the recipients check the box. This means that it is not necessary for recipients to be connected in order for them to be sent email. The recipient

To use email, you must have Internet access and an account with an email server (POP3 for Post Office Protocol) which can be likened to a post box into which you put the mail which you are sending. To keep everyone from being able to read your mail, it is protected using a user name called a login as well as a password.

Your email address is a combination of all this data, and is written:
login@pop.server (for example "jean-francois.Pillou@kioskea.net" - literally "Jean-François Pillou at en.kioskea.net". The "@" sign is pronounced "at" in email addresses.

How does the computer know where to send the message?

The operational principle of email is asynchronous communication, meaning the POP domain name server is associated with an IP address (which is something like the address which you would write on an envelope as a name, last name, street number, city, etc.). The path that the email will follow will be chosen by the routers.

What can be sent?

Any file can be sent by email (text, images, URL links, videos), however, you must take care that the server does not have a size limit for email (some servers do not accept messages several MB large).

Using email

When you open your email software (which you use to look at your messages) a certain number of windows (or boxes... depending on your software) appear (their name varies from one piece of software to another):

• Incoming, Inbox, In: This is where your mail arrives.
• Sent, Outbox, Out: These are copies of messages that you have sent.
• Deleted, Trash: The trash bin, meaning what's left of deleted files.
• Folders: These are the folders where you can file your email.

Here are the meanings of the fields to be filled in when you send an email:

• From: this is your email address; most of the time you will not have to fill in this field, because it is generally set by the email client according to your preferences.
• To: This field is used for the recipient's email address.
• Subject: this is the title that your recipient will see when he/she wants to read the email
• Cc (carbon copy): this allows an email to be send to a large number of people by writing their respective addresses separated by commas
• Bcc (blind carbon copy): This is a Cc, except that the recipient does not see the list of people in the Bcc field
• Message: This is the body of your email

The Carbon Copy function sends a copy to people not directly involved with the message but whom you wish to keep up to date with the message contents or show that you sent the email to the recipient(s).

The Blind Carbon Copy function makes it possible to forward messages without any of the recipients or even the hidden recipients seeing that the message is being forwarded to them. It is generally recommended when sending an email to many people to forward it using Blind Carbon Copy so as to prevent one of the recipients from replying to everyone or assembling a list of addresses.

Other email functions are:

• Attached Files, Attachments: You can "attach" files to your email by typing the absolute address of their location
• Signature: if your software allows you can define a signature, i.e. several lines of text which will be added to the end of an email

What to do with a message

There are many operations that can be performed on emails:

• New, Compose: Write a new message
• Erase, Delete, Remove: Erase a message
• Store, Save, Backup, Drafts: Copy a message into a safer place
• Print: Print a message
• Reply: Send a reply message to the sender (sometimes including their own message in the body of the document, with each line preceded by the symbol ">" and "Re:" followed by their chosen subject as the title, to show that it is a reply. The Reply All button makes it possible to send a reply to the sender as well as everyone else who had been put as a recipient or on copy.
• Forward: Forwards the message to someone else, letting them know that the message comes from you. The subject is generally preceded by Fwd: to indicate that it is a forwarded message.
• Redirect, Transmit: Forward a message to someone, letting them know where it originally came from. The subject is generally preceded by Fwd: to indicate that it is a forwarded message.

Comments concerning the use of email

In order to make good use of email, the following practices are recommended:

• save messages to the hard drive regularly
• make a habit of deleting files, so they don't needlessly fill up the server
• respect Netiquette
• do not send adverts
• in the body of the message, refer to the most important lines of the message to which you are replying
• avoid sending back the message in its entirety
• use smileys