Electronic mail also known as e-mail, is a method of exchanging digital messages from a sender to one or more recipients.

Modern e-mail operates across the Internet or other computer networks. Some early e-mail systems required that the sender and the recipient both be online at the same time in common with instant messaging. Today’s email systems are based on a store and forward model.

E-mail servers accept, forward, deliver and store messages. Neither the users nor their computers are required to be online simultaneously; they need to be connected only briefly, typically to an E-mail server, for as long as it takes to send or receive messages.

An internet E-mail message consists of three components, the message envelop, the message header and the message body. The message header contains control information, including an originator’s E-mail address and one or more recipient addresses. Usually descriptive information is also added, such as a subject header field and a message submission date/time stamp.

These are steps involved in sending an E-mail

There are three main steps involved in sending an Email message. These are –

1. The sender composes a message using an e-mail client on the computer.

2. When the user sends the message, the E-mail text and attachments are uploaded to the SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) server as outgoing mail.

3. All outgoing messages wait in the outgoing mail queue while the SMTP server communicates with the DNS (Domain Name System) to find out where the recipients e-mail server is located.

• If the SMTP server finds the recipient’s e-mail server, It will transfer the message and attachments.

• If the recipient’s server cannot be found, the server will get a mail failure notification in their inbox.

Components of E-mail messages

These are the main components of Email messages

To : field is where the e-mail address of the person receiving the e-mail is placed.

From : field is where your e-mail address put.

Subject : field indicated the purpose of e-mail.

Cc : stands for carbon copy. It specifies recipients who are not direct addresses. This field is optional.

Bcc : stands for Blind Carbon Copy. It is similar to Cc, except the recipients are secret. This field is also optional.

Message Body : is the area where you type your main message.