Email is so widely used in business, school, and personal life that it’s easy to take it for granted and neglect to consider how your communications are delivered. Writing and sending emails has become a massive part of our lives, but do we know what the actual parts of an email address are called? What do we call the email message components, the email body?

In this post, we’ll delve a little more into email composition and email address terminology.

Email parts name

Starting with the components of an email address. Three elements make up an email address. Consider a scenario where one of the three elements is absent when you send an email. In that situation, you’ll automatically receive an email, perhaps noting that the email could not be delivered owing to inaccurate address information. Another scenario is the possibility that you accidentally sent the email to someone you did not intend to send. Let’s examine each of the three components of an email address.

Username

The username is the initial component of an email address. This is the unique name you or your ISP choose. This can either be your full name or a nickname. Businesses may use their legal name or themed usernames. No two individuals or organizations can use the same username with the same provider; therefore, before allowing you to use it, your provider must confirm that nobody else is already using it.

Symbol

The @ symbol, commonly known as the at(@) sign, comes after selecting your username in an email address. The at(@) sign is used to point someone in the right direction. 

When you input the symbol, your email program recognizes it and delivers the message to the domain name that comes after it.

Consider sending an email to john, a made-up persona who works for entreprenuerarena.com, after his name would come the (@)at symbol. In a sense, you’re indicating that you want to contact john (@)at entreprenuerarena.com.

Domain

The domain, which consists of the mail server and the top-level domain, is the final component of an email address. The server that houses the email account is the mail server. For instance, Gmail uses the server name “Gmail,” while Yahoo email accounts use the server name “yahoo.” The extension, such as.com,.net or.info, is known as the top-level domain. While workers of a government organization use the a.gov domain, emails from educational institutions frequently end in.edu.

Considerations

Whether you’re signing up for a free or premium email account, you’re initially asked to choose a username. Give your username some thought, especially if you intend to use your email account to send business emails. While a catchphrase or funny nickname is unique, it might not be appropriate when emailing a CV to potential employers. Having your own domain name is more professional if you’re a business professional than utilizing a free email provider like Hotmail, Gmail, or Yahoo.

Ok, now that we know the structure of the email address, let’s understand a few more things:

• Email addresses are not case-sensitive: This indicates that it is irrelevant whether you type the address in capital, lowercase, or mixed case. (ONLY VERY RARELY, the account name may be case-sensitive). All free web-based email providers use non-case-sensitive addresses. As a result, “JOHN @ GMAIL.COM” is equivalent to ” john @ gmail.com.”
• Email addresses are typically written in small letters, as was stated in the previous point; it would be irrelevant whether you wrote it in capital letters.
• The email address is contained in angle brackets to show the account holder’s real name next to it. For example, contact John Doe at johndoe @ gmail.com
• Account names are limited to 64 characters, while domain names are limited to 254 characters.

Composition of email

Let’s move on to the email’s actual body now that we understand what an email suffix is and all the components it includes.

When composing and sending a professional email, it’s crucial to get the message’s components right.

• Subject line

A subject line is the first part of an email message. The purpose of the subject line is to inform the recipient of the email whether or not the message is urgent. For instance, if the email arrives while the recipient is in a meeting, they can check the subject line to decide whether to read it right away or put it off until after the meeting.

• Sender

The sender is the next element in the email’s construction. You must first write down the recipient’s email address to send an email.

• Recipient 

You are the recipient in this situation. Once you send an email, you will notice that the sender is followed by “me.” You can see your email address if you click on that.

• Email Message 

You’ve reached the section of the message now. Here is where you should type the recipient’s message. Before composing a professional email, introduce yourself before starting your message.

You can also include attachments, links, and images in your message.

Again, if you’re writing a professional email, remember to provide a strong conclusion.

• Signature

This is the final step, where you sign your name. It’s critical to have a strong email signature. Your name, phone number, company logo, etc., should all be included in your signature. It depends on you and what you’re trying to say.

What Characters Can I Use in My Email Address?

RFC 2822, the relevant internet standard document, specifies which characters can be acceptable in an email address.

In conventional language, an email’s username comprises words separated by dots. An “atom” or quoted string is a word in an email address. An atom is a string of ASCII characters ranging from 33 to 126, with 0 to 31 and 127 representing control characters and 32 representing whitespace.

A quotation mark starts and finishes a quoted string (“). Any ASCII character from 0 to 177, excluding the quote and carriage return, can be used between the quotations.

Backslash char can also be used in email addresses, although they have a distinct purpose. To include a quotation char in an email address, insert a backslash in front of the quotation character. The backslash quotes any character and removes the next character’s specific meaning from the context.

In your email address, you can use any ASCII alphanumeric character and any character between ASCII 33 and 47. The following characters are not permitted in an email address:

• Number sign (#)

• Exclamation mark (!)

• Percent sign (%)

• Dollar sign ($)

• Tilde (~)

• Ampersand (&)

Your email address can contain lowercase letters, numbers, dashes, and the underscore, yet some email providers distinguish between cases in the spelling of a legitimate address.