How Does an Email Address Work?

Introduction

In today's society having an email address is no longer a luxury, but almost a necessity. Everyone from friends and family to employers use the email system to communicate. It has been criticized that email and text messaging have killed the spoken word, with much of society preferring typed communication than having a traditional conversation. However, for most, emails make it simpler to have quick communications.

Email has been a godsend for family and friends that live in different states or countries. Conversing with family is cheaper with email than with long-distance calling. The added benefit is that you can attach photos and videos.

The Structure of an Email Address

Email addresses follow a uniform format. Every email address must have a local-part followed by the @ sign and end with the domain part. The domain portion of the email address (the part after the @ sign) is usually the name of website offering the email service. For instance, if you are using one of a free service such as Gmail or Hotmail, then the domain portion would be the domain name of the website (@gmail.com or @hotmail.com). For companies or individuals with their own domain and/or website the domain part of the email address is usually the company's name followed by .com or .net.

The first part of an email address is referred to as the local-part. This is usually the user's name or any group of letters and numbers that they choose. This part of the email address can't be more than 64 characters and can contain letters, numbers and certain characters. Since lower and uppercase letters are permitted, the local-part of the email address is case sensitive. Be cautious of this rule when giving out your email address because if you use the wrong case, the mail won't be delivered to you.

How it Works

After connecting to the webmail service or an email client (such as Outlook or Outlook Express), the email is composed. The major components of the email is the To, From, Subject and Message body. After these fields have been filled in the message is formatted and sent over the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP). The mail transfer agent looks for a destination to deliver the email in the "To" field.

The mail transfer agent first looks up the domain part of the email address in the Domain Name System to get what servers are used to collect email messages for the domain. Look at the domain part of the email address as the city, state and zip code of a home mailing address. The first thing that the postal service must do is to send the piece of mail to the correct city and state first, then the local office sorts it by the address. This is what the mail transfer agent does. It finds the domain service, then sends the email to it. The domain service then puts the message in the correct box by referencing the local-part of the email address.