Email

About Email

Electronic mail, most commonly called email is a method of exchanging digital messages from an author to one or more recipients.

Email operates across the Internet or other computer networks.

Some features of email.

Simple text may be sent to any address in the world at no little or cost.

Emails are automatically date and time stamped.

Addresses can be stored in an address book and retrieved.

Facility to send copies of a message to many people.

Files, photographs, drawings, maps, diagrams or sound can be sent as attachments.

Automatic filing and retrieval of messages.

Automatic reply to messages.

Auto forward and redirection of messages.

Notification if a message cannot be delivered.

Signatures can be attached ie standard texts at the end of an email.

Webmail can be used to receive and send messages while at a different location to your home computer.

Attachment: a file that's 'attached' to an email is called an attachment, often compressed which makes the file smaller and faster to send.

Using email

To send and receive email you must be connected to the Internet.

Sending email

Open the email client, on your computer eg Microsoft Outlook.

or if using webmail open a browser and enter the webmail address:-

eg http://www.gmail.com and log in.

Click 'New' or 'Compose'.

Enter the intended recipient(s) email address(es) in the 'To' field.

Write a suitable subject in the 'Subject' field.

Write the message in the space below the Subject field, called the body.

Check what you have written is what you wish to send.

Click 'Send' to send the email.

There's the option to add an attachment, eg a photo.

Looks like a paper clip.

CC = Carbon copy, the abbreviation CC indicates those who are to receive a copy of a message.

Addressed primarily to another. The list of CCed recipients is visible to all other recipients of the message.

An additional the BCC (blind carbon copy) option is available for hidden notification; recipients listed in the BCC field receive a copy of the message, but are not shown on any other recipient's copy (including other BCC recipients).

To: field recipients are the primary audience of the message,

CC: field recipients are others whom the author wishes to publicly inform of the message,

BCC: field recipients are those surreptitiously being informed of the communication.

Replying to emails

Most of the time, you will be replying to an email that someone else sends you. Instead of composing a brand-new message and to continue with the theme of the message (the thread). One should click on [Reply] from within the message.

When you reply, the recipient's email address will automatically appear in the To: field, so you don't need to worry about choosing the recipient.

Reply v Reply-all

Sometimes you'll receive emails where you're not the only recipient, and you'll need to decide whether you want to reply just to the person who sent the message [Reply] or reply to all (the sender and all recipients) [Reply-all].

For example, if you're collaborating with a group of people via email, you'll probably want to reply to all so everyone gets the message.

However, if you want to send a more private message to the sender, you'll need to select the reply option so the message stays between the two of you.

Please be careful when using Repy-all, do you really know to whom you are sending this message.

Forward: Email forwarding refers to the operation of re-sending an email message delivered to one email address, on to a possibly different email address.

A case of passing the buck, this is not for me can you deal with it !