Electronic mail, most commonly referred to as email or e-mail, is a method of exchanging digital messages from an author to one or more recipients.
Description
Modern email operates across the Internet or other computer networks.
Some early email systems required the author and the recipient to both be online at the same time, in common with instant messaging. Today's email systems are based on a store-and-forward model.
Email servers accept, forward, deliver, and store messages. Neither the users nor their computers are required to be online simultaneously; they need connect only briefly, typically to a mail server, for as long as it takes to send or receive messages.
Components of email
An Internet email message consists of three components:
- Message envelope
- Message header
- Message body
The message header contains control information, including, minimally, an originator's email 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.
See also
- Digital message
- Email and HTML
- Feedback loop (email)
- MailChimp
- Swift Mailer - free PHP-based library for sending email
- Telecommunications
- Text
External Links
- Email @ Wikipedia
