Email is a system that allows internet users to send messages. The sending of emails is now commonplace and is rapidly replacing old methods of communication (telephone and post). Each user has a unique email address - usually provided by their ISP(Internet Service Provider). An email address has two parts -  a name and a domain. Eg.  john.smith@myprovider.com john.smith is the name of the user and myprovider.com is the domain.

Tom sends an email message to Sarah...

• Tom writes the message and sends it to Sarah's email address
• The message is uploaded from Tom's PC to his ISP server.
• Tom's ISP server sends the message to Sarah's ISP server where it is stored.
• When Sarah logs on, she can check to see if there are any messages waiting for her, and then download them to her PC and read them.

Advantages of Email over traditional 'snail' mail.

• It is much faster to send a message (seconds instead of days)
• It is cheaper - there are no extra charges for sending emails
• One message can be sent to a number of people.
• You can send 'attachments' - pictures; sounds; video clips etc
• It does not matter if the recipient is on-line when the email is sent.

Disadvantages of email

• you cannot send physical objects - eg a parcel
• a large volume of emails are unwanted 'spam'. ISPs often place spam filters to try to remove them.
  

• Address book - which stores email addresses of people you may wish to send emails to.
• Inbox - stores received emails.
• Outbox - stores emails waiting to be sent.
• Sent Items - a record of emails that have been sent.
• Deleted items - emails that have been deleted.