Sending Emails - An Overview

Letterbox Analogy

Think for a moment about receiving and sending letters.

Letters that addressed to you are delivered to you through your letter box. Similarly, emails addressed to you are delivered to your POP3 mailbox. While there's some flexibility in the addressing of a letter, the addressing of an email needs to be spot on.

When you send a letter, you drop it in your nearest red post box. Similarly, emails that you send start their journey at an SMTP server.

The red post box isn't dedicated to you: everyone in your street uses the same red post box for sending letters. Similarly, the SMTP server to which you send your outgoing emails is usually shared with many other people.

What can I post?

In most cases, there's not much that's checked at the point of posting. It has to fit through the slot in the box, but that's about it. An SMTP server only slightly more discerning: you email needs to have a well-formed "to:" email address (but not necessarily a real email address)Of course, you're not limited to the post box in your street. You can post your letter in any one of millions of postboxes across the globe, though you'll tend to use the one that's closest to you - be that across the road from your house, on the way to work, etc.

Where can I post?

Although some SMTP servers will accept emails from anyone, most are limited to certain groups of users. What this means is that you are likely to be limited to which SMTP server you can use by where you are:

• If you are at home you'll usually need to send email via the SMTP serverbelonging to the ISP
• If you are using Google Mail (Gmail), you will be sending email via Google's SMTP server
• If you are using websmail, you will be sending email via the webmail provider's SMTP server
• If you are using a Blackberry, you will be sending email via Blackberry's SMTP server

Don't mix sending and receiving

The first time I set up an email account (in Microsoft Outlook), I entered the details of the POP3 mailbox for both incoming and outgoing mail.

My attempt to SEND and email via an SMTP server was the online equivalent of:

• Writing a letter
• Walking to my front door
• Pushing the letter through the letter box from inside

Clearly, that wasn't going to work.

Once I realised that I needed to provide details for an SMTP server, I expected to be using details that at least looked like the POP3 details. I expected them to be a matched pair, something like:

• pop@website.co.uk
• smtp@website.co.uk

Again, it took me a while to work out that there was no need to access the SMTP server for website.co.uk - it was easier to send emails via the SMTP server provided by my ISP.

(In fact, my ISP wouldn't let me send email through any other SMTP server anyway.)

A couple of other things to note about sending a letter (and sending an email)

• When you send a letter, you wouldn't dream of passing it through your own letter box. Similarly, a email that you send doesn't go via your POP3 mailbox.
• When you send a letter, you may add your address to the back of the letter. Note that the postal service doesn't check this address at any point from posting to delivery: what you write on the back has no impact on the delivery process. Similarly, the "from" address of an email that you send can - within certain limits - be anything you like