How does email actually work?

Email is a way to send messages and files to people over the internet. It has been around since the 1970s, and it has become an essential tool for communication in the digital age.

The first email system was created by a computer programmer named Ray Tomlinson in 1971. At the time, computers were large and expensive, and they were usually only found in research labs or government agencies. Tomlinson's email system was designed to allow people to send messages to each other using the same computer, without having to be in the same physical location.

The basic idea behind email is simple: you write a message, you enter the email address of the person you want to send it to, and you click "send." The message is then sent over the internet to the recipient's email server, where it is stored until the recipient checks their email.

But how does the message actually travel from your computer to the recipient's email server? And how does the email server know where to send the message?

To understand this, it's helpful to know a little bit about how the internet works. The internet is made up of a vast network of computers that are all connected to each other. When you send an email, your computer sends it to your internet service provider (ISP), which is a company that provides you with internet access.

Your ISP then sends the email to the recipient's ISP, which passes it along to the recipient's email server. The email server stores the message until the recipient checks their email. When the recipient checks their email, their computer sends a request to the email server, asking for the message. The email server then sends the message back to the recipient's computer, where it is displayed in the recipient's email program (such as Gmail or Outlook).

As you can see, sending an email involves a lot of different computers and servers working together to move the message from one place to another. But despite all the technical complexity, the basic idea behind email is still the same as it was when it was first invented: it's a way to send messages and files to people over the internet, no matter where they are in the world.