How E-mail Works.

Its use has grown exponentially as the internet has developed.Using emailis quite simple. Essentially a message is sent to an individual post box on a mail server where it waits untial an email client( an email client is a program run by a user to send and receive email)picks it up. To use email it is necessary to have a connection to an email server (which manages the distribution and storage of the emails) and to have an email client. A client is a program such as Outlook Express on a computer connected to the internet or a browser-based client such as the email service provided online by websites like Hotmail or Yahoo. Email can now also be used on a mobile phone connected using GPRS, WAP or even SMS. Internet users send hundreds of millions of e-mail messages to one another every day, and the majority are business-related. E-mail has become so popular it has replaced other forms of communication like posting or telephone.

Sending Mail
- When you send an e-mail message, your e-mail program connects to your Internet service provider's mail server.

- Your message might be broken into smaller pieces or packets.

- These smaller packets can travel more quickly from server to server, and are reassembled when they reach their destination.

Sorting the Mail
E-mail messages are sorted by domain. For the e-mail address feedback@allbusiness.com, for example, the domain is the allbusiness.com portion. The domain identifies where the message needs to go.