Email basics

Electronic mail or email is a quick way of sending messages to people using the internet. You send an email to another person's email address.

Email address

An email address such as james@email.co.uk, for example, is made up of the following parts:

• 'james' is the person's name or user name - the name they use
• the '@' stands for the word 'at' and means that they are connected to the email.co.uk part of the address
• after the '@' is the name of the place where the person works or the provider of the person's email address
• '.uk' shows that the email address is for someone in the United Kingdom

There are various popular free email providers such as 'Google', 'Hotmail' and 'Yahoo! Mail'.

Sending and receiving email

You can tell that an email is new or unopened as it will appear in bold. You can see who the email is from and the subject of the email.

An email has the following features:

• an 'address bar' where you put the email address
• a 'subject bar' where you write what your email is about
• the 'main body' of your email where you write your message

You open an email by clicking twice on it, for example in the subject line. Once an email is open you can reply to it. You reply by clicking on the 'reply' button.

• this will open a new email
• the address will already be completed as you are replying to the email
• the subject line will be completed and will start with RE:
• you type out your message in the main body of the page
• you send by clicking on the 'send' button
• to create a new email you click on the 'new' button
• you type the email address in the address bar and a subject in the subject bar
• type in your message and then press 'send'

Email is one of the most popular services on the internet.