What do I need to know about E-mail?

The What, Why, When and How of Email

E-mail – the What, Why, When and How

What?

Electronic mail (email or e-mail) is a method of exchanging messages (“mail”) between people using electronic devices.

Wikipedia.org

Email is a key communication tool, an easy way to send information to one or many people, and used by almost everyone – business and personal.

Why?

You want to send a message or information to someone or a number of people.

Why email when you can call or text?

Maybe it needs to be longer than a text message…

It may be that you don’t want to call and interrupt the person, or you don’t have their number.

Email is a quick way to send information to one or multiple people.

When

The simple answer is any time you want to send or share information with someone.

An email can be sent to one or many people, and you can write your text in the message body, or it can be attached (in a separate file).

It’s a standard method of communication within business – as it’s saved and can be referenced later.

But it’s also a popular method between friends and family.

Email Address

The only information you need is the address to send your message to.

It’s made up of two parts, separated by the ‘@’ (at sign).

In an address, the first half identifies the person or mailbox, and the second half is the company – a bit like your name and street address.

The name is most often something unique to the person – small companies may only use the first name, while larger companies (with more employees) may use firstname and surname or first initial and surname.

You may also have more generic accounts like hello or info, or departments IT, support, media, HR etc., where a group of people have access to the address.

For the second half (after the @), it’s either the company that you’re working for (e.g. a business) or the company that you’re using for email or internet (outlook.com, gmail.com, amazon.co.uk, tesco.com).

How

Read email through a program on your computer, via your smartphone, or through a web browser.

Once again, Microsoft and Google offer the most well known options…

MS Outlook - one of the most popular e-mail programs.

Microsoft Outlook

Gmail - the other most popular program.

Google Mail / Gmail

Apple Mail - standard e-mail program for anyone with an Apple account.

Apple Mail

Take a look at my Services to see how I can help.

Latest Posts

Share this post

Shopping Basket