Email: Composing, Sending and Managing Messages

Hello students, welcome to Kwickprep. You press Send, and your friend in Chennai reads your email in a few seconds. But where did it travel in between? Today we will learn how email travels using SMTP, POP3 and IMAP. We will also learn to compose, reply, forward, attach files, use CC and BCC, and manage folders and spam.

Let us start with the basic idea. Email is short for electronic mail, a message sent from one computer or phone to another. It travels over the internet and usually arrives within seconds. It can carry plain text, photos and other files. To use it, you need an email address and an email service, like Gmail or Outlook.

Take the address riya dot shah at gmail dot com. The user name, riya dot shah, identifies the person. The at sign separates the user name from the domain. The domain name, gmail dot com, tells us which mail service holds the mailbox.

A protocol is a set of rules that computers follow to talk to each other. SMTP stands for Simple Mail Transfer Protocol, and it sends mail out, from your app to servers. POP3 stands for Post Office Protocol version three, and it downloads mail from the server to one device. IMAP stands for Internet Message Access Protocol, and it keeps mail on the server, synced across all your devices.

Now let us follow one email from Riya to Aman. Riya writes the message and presses Send. Her mail app uses SMTP to hand the message to her own mail server. That server again uses SMTP to pass it to Aman's mail server. Aman's server stores it in his mailbox, like a post office holding a letter. When Aman opens his app, it collects the message using IMAP or POP3. Finally the message appears on Aman's screen.

Exams often ask the difference between POP3 and IMAP. With POP3, mail is usually downloaded to one device and often removed from the server. With POP3, a message read on your phone is not marked read on your laptop, but IMAP keeps every device in sync. POP3 lets you read downloaded mail without the internet, while IMAP apps can do this only for mail they have saved. Today most phone and web mail apps use IMAP, because people check mail on many devices.

Pause and predict with me. You open and read a new mail on your phone. Then you open the same account on your laptop. Will that mail show as read on the laptop? With IMAP, yes, because the server remembers the change. With POP3, no, because each device keeps its own copy.

To compose means to write a new email, usually with a button called Compose or New mail. In the To field, type the address of the main receiver. The Subject is a short line that tells what the mail is about. The body is the actual message, with a greeting, the matter and your name. The attach button, often a paper clip, adds a file like a PDF or a photo.

Once a mail arrives, you have three common choices. Reply sends your answer only to the person who sent the mail, and the subject begins with Re. Reply all sends your answer to the sender and everyone else in To and CC, so use it with care. Forward sends the same mail, with its attachments, to a new person you choose, and the subject begins with Fwd.

Let us look closer at attachments. An attachment is any file sent along with an email, like a photo, a PDF or a spreadsheet. Services limit the size, and Gmail allows about twenty five megabytes per mail. For bigger files, upload them to a cloud drive and share a link instead. Never open an attachment from a stranger, because it may hide a virus.

Now the fields that confuse many students. People in the To field are the main receivers who must act on the mail. CC means carbon copy, and people in CC get a copy just to stay informed, and everyone can see their addresses. BCC means blind carbon copy, and BCC addresses are hidden from all other receivers, so only the sender knows who got a blind copy.

Here is an everyday example. A class teacher sends a notice to all forty parents. She puts her own address in To and all the parents in BCC. Now no parent can see any other parent's email address. This protects privacy, and nobody can Reply all to forty people by mistake.

An email account keeps messages in folders. The Inbox holds mail you receive. The Sent folder keeps a copy of everything you send. Drafts holds mail you started but did not send yet, and it saves automatically. Spam, also called Junk, holds unwanted or unsafe mail. Trash, also called Bin, holds deleted mail, and Gmail empties it after thirty days.

You can also organise mail your own way. Create folders, which Gmail calls labels, such as School or Coaching. Star or flag a mail you must come back to. Archive a mail to remove it from the Inbox but still keep it safely. And use the search box to find any mail by name, word or date.

Finally, spam, which needs care. Spam is unwanted mail sent in bulk, like fake prizes, loan offers or tricks to steal passwords. Mail services use spam filters that move most of it to the Spam folder automatically. If spam reaches your Inbox, click Report spam, which teaches the filter. Never click links, open files or reply to spam, because replying confirms your address is active. If a real mail lands in Spam, mark it Not spam to move it back.

Let us revise what we learned today. SMTP sends mail, and POP3 or IMAP brings it to the reader. IMAP keeps all devices in sync, while POP3 downloads mail to one device. Reply goes to the sender, Reply all to everyone, and Forward to someone new. CC addresses are visible to all, but BCC addresses stay hidden. Keep mail in the right folders, and report spam instead of opening it.