Understanding the Email Process
What’s in an email address name?
The starting point in the email process is obtaining and creating your email account. An email <account> can allow for the creation of multiple email addresses but for the sake of simplicity and ease of explanation, one email account will be deemed to be a single <internet> based email address (i.e. yourname @ somedomain . com) (spaces intentionally included so that it is not considered a valid email address if clicked on).
The email address is comprised of three separate and distinct components
- <UNIQUE ID> – the part that precedes the “@” character in the email address – “yourname” in the above example
- <DOMAIN NAME> – the part the immediately follows the “@” character up to the <LAST> period – “somedomain” in the above example
- <TLD> (top level domain) group (i.e. .com / .ca / .eu / .org / .info etc) – what follows the very last period in the email address – “.com” in the above example
The reason for the emphasis above on the “period” character is that the <DOMAIN NAME> can contain periods when <sub-domain> names are being utilized and it’s really useful to know and understand the difference. A common scenario is someone who clicked on what looked like some kind of support or product related URL for Microsoft thinking that they are connecting directly with Microsoft.
For example – the following <appears> to be the same URL
a) https://windows.microsoft.com
b) https://windows-microsoft.com
Link in item (a) is owned by Microsoft and the word “windows” in this URL represents a “sub-domain” of microsoft.com. Email addresses don’t generally contain “sub-domains” in the email address but it is still part of a valid email address if used.
Link in item (b) is a unique domain (windows-microsoft.com) which has nothing to do with Microsoft (leastwise not when this article was written). In this scenario, if there is no period before and after the word “Microsoft”, then this is not a web page controlled by “Microsoft.com”. The same examples could be applied to things like “PayPal”, “Apple”, your bank etc – a common technique used in spam. In short, pay attention to <real> “domain name”.
What the domain name will be for your email address depends completely on where you create your email account.
Where do I get an email address
Where you create your email account would generally be categorized coming from one of the following “providers” and is considered to be your ESP (Email Service Provider)
- a free email service such as Outlook.com / Gmail / Yahoo
- from your ISP (Internet Service Provider) – the service you use to connect to the internet (i.e. your cable provider)
- your web-hosting provider if you have your own website with a custom domain name
Regadless of which of the above options are selected, the email account will be created on a server managed by the provider technically making every email account one which is located “in the cloud” or to put this another way, it is the <inbox> location where email gets delivered that is sent to you by others. No matter how you eventually access your email, everything arrives at this location – the email server managed by your ESP. For the purposes of this article, locally managed company email servers using Microsoft Exchange or Notes etc are not included.
How to access your email
There are essentially only two ways to access your email account
- Using webmail (if available from your provider – virtually all do) via the web browser of your choce and/or
- An email client installed on your desktop/laptop computer (referred to a “desktop client”) or whatever is provided with a mobile device that you are using
What you can and cannot do when using an “email client” depends solely on the capabilities of and settings used in that email client whether desktop or mobile device. There are countless email clients, desktop and mobile, free and paid. Using Microsoft Outlook is different than using Thunderbird, using an Android mobile device is different then using an iPhone etc
How the email information is retrieved from your account is not determined when you create your email account but defined with “settings” used by the email client used to retrieve the information (otherwise referred to as the email protocol – i.e. POP, Imap. Mapi. EAS etc)
A more detailed description of “email clients” can be found in “Understanding Email Clients versus Email Accounts“
What information can I access in my email account
At the most fundamental level, your email account handles one thing and one thing only – inbound and outbound EMAIL. Any additional information related to contacts, calendars, tasks etc depends entirely on additional functionality (extensions) provided by your ESP combined with the type of email client used (WebMail, desktop, mobile) in conjunction with the email protocol used to configure the email account. <Email Protocol> doesn’t play a role when accessing your email account using WebMail via your web browser.
It’s important to have a general understanding of the different <email protocols> since that dictates what kind of information is available, what gets stored where, when things get deleted, having access to the same information across multiple devices etc.
An overview of the different email protocols is described in “Understanding Email Protocols (POP, Imap, MAPI, EAS)”
The email send/recieve timelines (why does it take so long)
At a very minimum (again for the sake of absolute simplicity) there are between 2 to 4 key “touch points” in the email process depending on whether or not a webmail or desktop client is being used by the sender and receiver.
If both the sender and receiver are using a WebMail email client, then they are interacting directly with their server for the process of sending and recieving email. For the purpose of this description, the two servers (sender and receiver) are deemed to be directly connected which we all know is not “reality” but sufficent to highlight how things work.
Scenario #1 – both parties using WebMail
- Sender clicks send
- Message goes into the Outbox waiting to be sent – how quickly that happens depends on the setting of that particular server
- Receiving server checks for inbound messages and places the message(s) in the <Inbox> – how quickly that happens depends on the setting of that particular server
- Receiver sees the message
So, for sake of argument, let’s say each server performs the check every 2 minutes, a total of 4 minutes can go by before the recipient sees the message in their <Inbox> depending on where in the server cycle a message is sent and received. In the real world, messages don’t travel directly from Point “A” to Point “B” so the travel time between the two locations must also be factored in along with how “busy” a server can be at given point in time.
Scenario #2 – both parties using a desktop client
- Sender clicks <send>
- Email client saves the message in the <Outbox>
- Email client is configured with a specific Send cycle time to send the message to the <Sending Server>
- The <Sending Server> processes the message as per its <Send Cycle> to the recipient server
- The <Receiving Server> processes <inbound> messages as per its schedule putting messages in the <Inbox> on the server
- The Receiver queries the server to see if any new messages have arrived and puts them in the <Inbox> of the desktop client
The duration in this case depends on the cycle times of each point (Sender’s Desktop Send, Sender’s Server Send, Recipient Server Recieve, Recepient Desktop Receive). Delays at any of these points combined with any other potential Internet bottlenecks that may occur will dictate how long things may take from start to finish.
Category: Understanding Outlook
