How Does Email Work?

Email has been widely used since 1993. It is one of the Internets oldest alications. In !"13#
1$!.9 emails were sent e%ery day. Email continues to be one of the most oular alications
on the internet. Internet users send billions of email messa&es e%ery day. 'he ma(ority of these
emails are business related.
'his &oes to show how imortant email has become in our ersonal li%es and interactions in the
work en%ironment. )lthou&h email is so oular worldwide# many eole do not understand how
the rocess of email really works.
Sending Mail
When an email messa&e is sent# the email ro&ram connects to the Internet ser%ice ro%iders
mail ser%er. *imilar to all Internet traffic# the network breaks the email messa&e into arts of a
certain si+e in bytes. ) normal acket contains 1""" or 1,"" bytes. 'hese arts are called
acket. Each acket contains the information that will hel it &et to the recei%er such as the
sender-s I. address# the recei%er-s I. address# somethin& that tells the network how much
ackets this email messa&e has been broken into and the number of this articular acket.
Sorting the Mail
Email messa&es are sorted by domain. /or e0amle# for the email address
email1e0amle.com# the domain would be the e0amle.com ortion of the address. 'he
domain establishes where the messa&e needs to &o to reach the reciient.
E%ery domain name connects to a different Web address# which is called an I. 2Internet
.rotocol3 address# which is a strin& of numbers of which each ser%er is distin&uished. 'hese
connections are ket in the Domain 4ame 5e&istry. When the e6mail ser%er obtains a messa&e#
it looks at the domain and checks the re&istry to fi&ure out what I. address to send the email
messa&e to. 7nce the roer I. address is determined# the email messa&e is sent on its way.
'he ackets that the emails are sorted into carry the data in the rotocols that the Internet uses.
'hese rotocols are 'ransmission 8ontrol .rotocol 2'8.3 and Internet .rotocol 2I.3. 'hese two
rotocols are used to&ether. 'he Internet .rotocol dictates how ackets of information are sent
out o%er networks. I. has a ack addressin& method that lets any comuter on the Internet
forward a acket to another comuter that is a ste closer to the reciient of the email. '8.
ensures the reliability of data transmission across Internet connected networks. '8. checks
ackets for mistakes and sends re9uests for re6sendin& the email if mistakes are found. 'hese
smaller ieces or ackets can tra%el faster from ser%er to ser%er and are reassembled when
they reach the reciient. Each acket is then sent to its destination by the best a%ailable route.
'his route may be taken by all the other ackets in the messa&e or by none of the other ackets
in the messa&e. 'his makes the network faster.
Delivering the Mail
Deendin& on where the recei%ers ser%er is# the senders email ser%er may not make the final
handoff. It is likely that the messa&e will tra%el between many transfer oints before reachin&
the reciient. )t each oint# the domain is identified and the messa&e is assed to another
transfer oint. 'his rocess is reeated until the correct ser%er is reached. )s the messa&e
asses throu&h these transfer oints# it &ets closer and closer to its destination. 7nce the
messa&e reaches the ri&ht domain ser%er# it is channeled into the ri&ht email account and
stored there until the user lo&s into their email account and checks for new email.
When the recei%er commands his or her email ro&ram# for e0amle :icrosoft 7utlook# to check
for new mail# the email ro&ram connects to the email ser%er# looks in the users mailbo0 and
retrie%es any mail that is waitin&. 'his is the final destination of the email. )lthou&h this seems
like a comlicated rocess# all of this haens in a matter of seconds.