Unit- II

Introduction:
Electronic mail (email or e-mail) is a method of exchanging messages ("mail") between people
using electronic devices. Invented by Ray Tomlinson, email first entered limited use in the 1960s
and by the mid-1970s had taken the form now recognized as email. Email operates
across computer networks, which today is primarily the Internet. 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 to connect only briefly, typically to a mail server or
a webmail interface for as long as it takes to send or receive messages or to download it.
Originally an ASCII text-only communications medium, Internet email was extended
by Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME) to carry text in other character sets and
multimedia content attachments. International email, with internationalized email addresses
using UTF-8, has been standardized, but as of 2017 it has not been widely adopted.
The history of modern Internet email services reaches back to the early ARPANET, with standards
for encoding email messages published as early as 1973 (RFC 561). An email message sent in the
early 1970s looks very similar to a basic email sent today.
Computer-based mail and messaging became possible with the advent of time-sharing computers
in the early 1960s, and informal methods of using shared files to pass messages were soon
expanded into the first mail systems. Most developers of early mainframes and minicomputers
developed similar, but generally incompatible, mail applications. Over time, a complex web of
gateways and routing systems linked many of them. Many US universities were part of
the ARPANET (created in the late 1960s), which aimed at software portability between its
systems. In 1971 the first ARPANET network email was sent, introducing the now-familiar
address syntax with the '@' symbol designating the user's system address. The Simple Mail
Transfer Protocol (SMTP) protocol was introduced in 1981.
For a time in the late 1980s and early 1990s, it seemed likely that either a proprietary commercial
system or the X.400 email system, part of the Government Open Systems Interconnection
Profile (GOSIP), would predominate. However, once the final restrictions on carrying commercial
traffic over the Internet ended in 1995, a combination of factors made the current Internet suite of
SMTP, POP3 and IMAP email protocols the standard.
 The popular email services are listed below and are available at free of cost.
1) Outlook.com
2) Gmail
3) Yahoo Mail
4) Inbox.com
5) Mail.com
6) AOL Mail
7) Zoho Mail
The common protocols used for email services are IMAP, POP and SMTP.

Advantages and disadvantages of using email

Advantages
 Emails are delivered extremely fast when compared to traditional post.
 Emails can be sent 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
 Webmail means emails can be sent and received from any computer, anywhere in the world, that
has an internet connection.
 Cheap - when using broadband, each email sent is effectively free. Dial-up users are charged at
local call rates but it only takes a few seconds (for conventional email, eg text only) to send an
email.
 Emails can be sent to one person or several people.
 Email is a free tool. Once you are online, there is no further expense that you need to spend on
in order to send and receive messages.
 Email is quick. Once you have finished composing a message, sending it is as simple as clicking
a button. Email, especially if an email system is integrated into the network, is sent, delivered
and read almost immediately.
 Email is simple. It is easy to use. Once your account is set up, composing, sending and receiving
messages is simple. Also, email allows for the easy and quick access of information and
contacts.
 Email allows for easy referencing. Messages that have been sent and received can stored, and
searched through safely and easily. It is a lot easier to go through old email messages rather than
old notes written on paper.
 Email is accessible from anywhere – as long as you have an internet connection. Whether or not
you are in the office or on the field, or even overseas, you can access your inbox and go through
your messages.
 Email is paperless, and therefore, beneficial for the planet. Not only can you reduce the costs of
paper, you are actually reducing the damage paper usage does to the environment.
 Email allows for mass sending of messages. An effective medium to utilize to get your message
out there, you can send one particular message to several recipients all at once.
 Email allows for instant access of information and files. You can opt to send yourself files and
keep messages so that you have a paper trail of conversations and interactions you have online
just in case you may need them in the future.
Disadvantages
 The recipient needs access to the internet to receive email.
 Viruses are easily spread via email attachments (most email providers scan emails for viruses on
your behalf).
 Phishing - sending an email to a user falsely claiming to be a legitimate company to scam the
user into providing information, such as personal information and bank account numbers on a
bogus website. The details will then be used for identity theft.
 No guarantee the mail will be read until the user logs on and checks their email.
 Spam - unsolicited email, ie junk mail.
 Email could potentially cause information overload. Some messages may be dismissed or left
unread, especially if there are a lot coming in and the network has not integrated some sort of
email alert system into the computers at work.
 Email lacks a personal touch. While some things are better off sent as written and typed
messages, some things should be verbally relayed or written by hand in a note or letter.
 Email can be disruptive. Going through each email can be disruptive to work as it does require a
bit of time. This disruption is decreased through the utilization of an email alert system.
 Email cannot be ignored for a long time. The thing with email is that it needs constant
maintenance. If you ignore it, more and more messages will enter your inbox until it gets to the
point that your inbox is no longer manageable.
 Email can cause misunderstandings. Because email does not include nonverbal communication,
recipients may misinterpret the sender‟s message. This is particularly true of senders fail to go
through their messages before they send them.
 Email messages can contain viruses. It‟s best to be aware of this possibility so that you are
careful when opening messages from people you don‟t know, or when downloading
attachments.
 Email should be kept short and brief. This is especially difficult if you are one to send messages
that are too long.
 Email requires timely responses. While some people tend to disregard messages, those that
require responses should be replied to as soon as they are received and read. If not, urgent and
important messages may be left untended.

Creating Email Account

There are various email service provider available such as Gmail, hotmail, ymail, rediff
mail etc. Here we will learn how to create an account using Gmail.
 Open gmail.com and click create an account.
 Now a form will appear. Fill your details here and click Next Step.

 This step allows you to add your picture. If you don‟t want to upload now, you can do it
later. Click Next Step.
 Now a welcome window appears. Click Continue to Gmail.
 Wow!! You are done with creating your email account with Gmail. It‟s that easy. Isn‟t it?
 Now you will see your Gmail account as shown in the following image:
Key Points:
 Gmail manages the mail into three categories namely Primary, Social and Promotions.
 Compose option is given at the right to compose an email message.
 Inbox, Starred, Sent mail, Drafts options are available on the left pane which allows you
to keep track of your emails.

Composing and Sending Email

Before sending an email, we need to compose a message. When we are composing an email
message, we specify the following things:
 Sender‟s address in To field
 Cc (if required)
 Bcc (if required)
 Subject of email message
 Text
 Signature

You should specify the correct email address; otherwise it will send an error back to the
sender.

Once you have specified all the above parameters, It‟s time to send the email. The mailer program
provides a Send button to send email, when you click Send, it is sent to the mail server and a
message mail sent successfully is shown at the above.
Reading Email
Every email program offers you an interface to access email messages. Like in Gmail, emails are
stored under different tabs such as primary, social, and promotion. When you click one of tab, it
displays a list of emails under that tab.
In order to read an email, you just have to click on that email. Once you click a particular email, it
gets opened.
The opened email may have some file attached with it. The attachments are shown at the bottom
of the opened email with an option called download attachment.
Replying Email
After reading an email, you may have to reply that email. To reply an email, click Reply option
shown at the bottom of the opened email.
Once you click on Reply, it will automatically copy the sender‟s address in to the To field. Below
the To field, there is a text box where you can type the message.
Once you are done with entering message, click Send button. It‟s that easy. Your email is sent.
Forwarding Email
It is also possible to send a copy of the message that you have received along with your own
comments if you want. This can be done using forward button available in mail client software.
The difference between replying and forwarding an email is that when you reply a message to a
person who has send the mail but while forwarding you can send it to anyone.
When you receive a forwarded message, the message is marked with a > character in front of each
line and Subject: field is prefixed with Fw.
Deleting Email
If you don‟t want to keep email into your inbox, you can delete it by simply selecting the message
from the message list and clicking delete or pressing the appropriate command.
Some mail clients offers the deleted mails to be stored in a folder called deleted items or trash
from where you can recover a deleted email.
Structure of an email
There is a standard structure for emails. Email contents are primarily classified as two, the
header and the body. We are going to see the contents come under the two subparts.
The Header
 The email header gives us common details about the message such as the unique identity of
the message. The details of the users of the „from‟ and „to‟ ends are also stored here. The
email header consists of the following parts. However, the exact contents of the header can
vary according to the email systems that generate the email message.
1. Subject
2. Sender (From:)
3. Date and time received (On)
4. Reply-to
5. Recipient (To:)
6. Recipient email address
7. Attachments
 Subject
The subject part is the topic of the message. In most email systems, if the content view of
the folders is set to view each messages separately, the subject part also will be visible with
 the user‟s name. These subject fields are scanned by the spam scanners to evaluate the
messages.
 Sender (From:)
This field describes the „from‟ address of the email. This will specify the sender‟s email
address. Usually, it will be the “reply-to” address.
 Date and time received (On)
This is the date and time the message received.
 Reply-to
This field describes the email address that will become the recipient of the reply to the
particular email. When you reply, it will go to this email address despite the sender email
address.
 Recipient (To:)
This is the first/last name of the email recipient as configured by the sender.
 Recipient email address
The email address of the recipient is specified here.
 Attachments
Some emails could be attached with files such as text, image, audio, video etc. These files
are specified here.
 Body
The actual content is stored in this part. This will be in the format of text. This field could
also include signatures or text generated automatically by the sender‟s email system. As we
mentioned earlier, the contents of the emails can be varied according to the different email
systems used by each user.

Working of E-mail
E-mail System
E-mail system comprises of the following three components:
 Mailer
 Mail Server
 Mailbox

Mailer

It is also called mail program, mail application or mail client. It allows us to manage, read and
compose e-mail.
Mail Server

The function of mail server is to receive, store and deliver the email. It is must for mail servers to
be running all the time because if it crashes or is down, email can be lost.

Mailboxes

Mailbox is generally a folder that contains emails and information about them.

Working of E-mail

Email working follows the client server approach. In this client is the mailer i.e. the mail
application or mail program and server is a device that manages emails.
Following example will take you through the basic steps involved in sending and receiving emails
and will give you a better understanding of working of email system:
 Suppose person A wants to send an email message to person B.
 Person A composes the messages using a mailer program i.e. mail client and then select
Send option.
 The message is routed to Simple Mail Transfer Protocol to person B‟s mail server.
 The mail server stores the email message on disk in an area designated for person B.

The disk space area on mail server is called mail spool.

 Now, suppose person B is running a POP client and knows how to communicate with B‟s
mail server.
 It will periodically poll the POP server to check if any new email has arrived for B.As in
this case, person B has sent an email for person B, so email is forwarded over the network
to B‟s PC. This is message is now stored on person B‟s PC.
The following diagram gives pictorial representation of the steps discussed above:
There are several email service providers available in the market with their enabled features such
as sending, receiving, drafting, storing an email and much more.
The following table shows the popular email service providers:

S.N. Service and Description

1. Gmail
Gmail is an email service that allows users to collect all the messages. It also offers approx 7
GB of free storage.

2. Hotmail
Hotmail offers free email and practically unlimited storage accessible on web.

3. YahooMail
Yahoo Mail offers unlimited storage, SMS texting, social networking and instant messaging to
boot.

4. iCloudMail
iCloud Mail offers ample storage, IMAP access, and an elegantly functional web application.
Microsoft Outlook
Microsoft Outlook is a personal information manager from Microsoft, available as a part of
the Microsoft Office suite. Primarily an email application, it also includes a calendar, task
manager, contact manager, note taking, journal, and web browsing.
It can be used as a stand-alone application, or can work with Microsoft Exchange
Server and Microsoft SharePoint Server for multiple users in an organization, such as shared
mailboxes and calendars, Exchange public folders, SharePoint lists, and meeting schedules.
Microsoft has also released mobile applications for most mobile platforms, including iOS and
Android. Developers can also create their own custom software that works with Outlook and
Office components using Microsoft Visual Studio. In addition, Windows Phone devices can
synchronize almost all Outlook data to Outlook Mobile.
Outlook is one of the most popular email clients in the world, and has a host of powerful features.
In order to get the most out of Outlook, you'll want to add your email accounts so that you can find
all of your messages in one place, import your calendar so that you can see upcoming events, and
add your contacts from your various online contacts lists.

REQUIREMENTS

Before you start, be sure you have these handy:

 Your domain name: example.com

 Your email address: [email protected]
For more information, please read this article: Creating a POP/IMAP email account.
 Your email password.

CONFIGURE OUTLOOK 2018

1. Open Outlook 2018 and select Tools. Then click Account.

2. Select the + icon in the lower left corner.

3. Input your username. Then click Continue.

4. You can wait for Outlook to detect your provider type. Or you can click Choose the
Provider.
 5. Ensure your provider type is IMAP/POP.

6. Enter your information to the email form. Then click Add Account.

o Type: IMAP or POP (we recommend IMAP). Learn more about the differences
here
o Email Address: Your full [email protected] email address.
o Username: Your full [email protected] email address.
o Password: Your password.
Incoming Server: We recommend using mail.example.com (replacing example.com with your
domain name).
Outgoing Server: This will also be mail.example.com (replacing example.com with your domain
name).
How to add your e-mail account to Outlook 2010

1. Click File, then Information in the submenu and the Add account button.

2. Select Manually configure server settings or additional server types and

click on Next.
3. Select Internet E-mail and click on Next.

2. Enter your name and e-mail address. Select POP3 for the account type
and enter pop.mail.com as incoming server and smtp.mail.com as outgoing
server. Enter your mail.com username and password. Uncheck Test
Account Settings by clicking the Next button. Click on More Settings.
 4. Select the Outgoing Server tab. Check My outgoing server requires
authentication.

 Select the Advanced tab. Enter 995 next to Incoming server and check This server requires
an encrypted connection (SSL). Enter 587 next to Outgoing server and select TLS as
encrypted connection type (a). If a copy of your e-mail should stay in your mail.com
mailbox, check Leave a copy of messages on the the server (b). Click on OK (c) and
on Next (d).

Click on Finish.

Outlook 2010 retrieves the e-mail from your mail.com mailbox.