Email Basics for Beginners: How to Use Email Step by Step

To get started with using email, you need to know a few email basics. Once you’ve got them, sending an email is easy.

In this email for beginners guide, I’ll take you through the fundamentals of using email on your home computer, step by step. The stuff everyone should know: how email addresses work, how to send an email, what Cc and Bcc mean, and how to reply to and forward emails.

What You Need to Send an Email

You need two things: an email account and somewhere to read it.

• An email account. The big free ones are Gmail, Outlook.com and Yahoo Mail. You might also have one from your broadband company. If you haven’t got one yet, you can set up a free Gmail account in a few minutes.
• Somewhere to read it. Most people simply go to their email provider’s website and sign in. That’s called webmail, and it’s what I use in this guide. You can also use an email app on your computer or phone.

The buttons have slightly different names in each email service, but they all work the same way. Learn the basics once and you can use any of them.

Email Basics: Email Addresses

We’ll kick off by looking at email addresses, because this is something that really does trip a lot of people up.

When you don’t send many emails, it’s easy to get an address wrong. And when it comes to sending an email, it’s probably the single most important thing to get right.

Quite simply, if you don’t address the email correctly, it won’t be delivered. Email systems won’t guess what you meant.

Every email address has three parts. Take yourname@gmail.com as an example:

• yourname is the name part. It’s the bit that’s unique to you.
• @ is the at sign. You say it as at, so this address is read out as yourname at gmail dot com.
• gmail.com is the email provider.

How to Type the @ Symbol

Every email address has an @ in it, and finding it on the keyboard catches a lot of people out.

• On a UK keyboard, hold down Shift and press the key just to the right of the semicolon (;) key. It has the @ printed on it.
• On a US keyboard, hold down Shift and press 2.
• On a phone or tablet, the keyboard usually shows an @ key on its own when you’re typing an email address.

Don’t Use Spaces in Email Addresses

Email addresses are typed as one continuous word. There are no spaces at all. Each number, letter or symbol simply follows on from the one before it.

That’s why you’ll often see dots, underscores or hyphens used to separate words, to make addresses easier to read and remember.

When you’re typing an email address, don’t use the spacebar on your keyboard.

Using Capital Letters in Email Addresses

Capital letters, on the other hand, really don’t matter. Email services ignore them, so they’re treated as lower case.

The convention is to type email addresses entirely in lower case, with no CAPITALS. But if you throw in a capital letter by accident, no worries, it’ll still work fine. In other words, email addresses aren’t case-sensitive.

A Basic Guide to Sending an Email

Now that we know the basics of email addresses, let’s go through the process of actually sending an email.

Sign in to your email account, then look for the button that starts a new email. It’s usually at the top left of the screen, and its name depends on which email service you use:

• Gmail: Compose
• Outlook.com: New email (sometimes just New)
• Yahoo Mail: Compose

The New Email Window Opens

After clicking Compose or New mail (or whatever it’s called in your email service), a new email window opens. It has three basic sections:

• To: the address line, where you type (or paste) the email address of the person you’re writing to.
• Subject: a short description of what the email is about. It’s better to type something here than to leave it blank.
• The body: the big box where you type your message.

Click Send

When you’ve filled in all three, click Send. That’s it. Your email is on its way, and a copy is saved in your Sent folder, so you can always check what you sent and when.

Email Basics: The Address Line

Whenever you send an email to a new address, one you haven’t used before, your email service will usually add it to your list of contacts.

The next time you write to that person, their address pops up as soon as you start typing it. Click it once and the address is filled in for you. It’s quicker, and it means you can’t mistype it.

What Are Cc and Bcc?

You’ll usually find Cc and Bcc buttons at the end of the address line when you’re writing a new email. Cc stands for carbon copy and Bcc stands for blind carbon copy.

You use them when you want to send exactly the same email to several people at the same time. Clicking either one gives you an extra line where you can type more email addresses.

It’s useful when you’re trying to get a party organised, or a meet up. In this example, the email is addressed to Jane, while Dave and Bob have been copied in, which means they’ll receive the same email.

Email Basics: The Subject Line

The subject line is what people see in their inbox before they open your email. It’s usually just a few words to say what the message is about.

It helps your email stand out, and it helps the person decide whether to read it now or later.

Always enter a subject. It doesn’t have to be anything special. If you’re emailing friends and family, something like Hi, it’s Jeff is fine.

Email Basics: The Body Text

The body is where you write your message. It can be long or short. It all depends on what you have to say and who you’re sending it to.

A few simple habits make any email easier to read:

• Start with a greeting, such as Hi Jane.
• Keep it short, and leave a blank line between paragraphs.
• Don’t type the whole thing in CAPITALS. It reads as if you’re shouting.
• Finish with your name, so they know who it’s from.
• Read it through once before you click Send.

You can also send photos and documents with an email. They’re called attachments, and I show you how in the lesson on email attachments.

Replying To and Forwarding Emails

The last of the email basics is the Reply and Forward buttons.

The Reply button does exactly what it says. When you get an email you want to answer, click Reply and the sender’s email address is filled in for you.

Your reply usually includes their original message underneath, so when they read your answer they can easily see what they wrote in the first place.

The Forward button does something completely different. Forwarding an email sends it on to someone else, so you’ll need to type in the email address of the person you’re passing it to.

The Reply button is usually an arrow bending to the left, and the Forward button is an arrow bending to the right.

Reply or Reply All?

If an email was sent to several people, you’ll also see Reply all. Reply sends your answer only to the person who wrote the email. Reply all sends it to everyone who got it.

Use Reply unless you really mean everyone to read your answer. Plenty of people have found out the hard way.

Where Your Emails Go: Inbox, Sent, Drafts and Junk

Down the left-hand side of your email, you’ll see a list of folders. These are the ones you’ll use most:

• Inbox: where new emails arrive.
• Sent: a copy of every email you send.
• Drafts: emails you started but haven’t sent yet. If you close an email without sending it, it’s usually saved here.
• Spam or Junk: emails your email service thinks are unwanted. If you’re expecting an email that hasn’t turned up, look in here.
• Bin or Trash: emails you’ve deleted. Most services empty it automatically after a while.

A word of warning: not every email is what it seems. Emails pretending to be from your bank or a delivery company, asking you to click a link, are called phishing. I cover how to spot them later in the course.

Troubleshooting

My Email Came Straight Back

If you get an email back a few minutes later saying your message wasn’t delivered, or that the address couldn’t be found, there’s almost always a mistake in the email address. Check it letter by letter, look for any spaces, and try again.

They Say They Didn’t Get My Email

First, look in your Sent folder. If the email is there, it went. Ask the person to check their spam or junk folder, and check you used the right address.

If it isn’t in Sent, look in Drafts. It may never have been sent.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Which button do you use to start writing a new email?
A: In Gmail and Yahoo Mail it’s Compose, and in Outlook.com it’s New mail. It’s not the Forward button: Forward sends an email you’ve received on to someone else.

Q: What is the difference between Cc and Bcc?
A: Both send a copy of your email to extra people. With Cc, everyone can see who else got the email. With Bcc, the other addresses are hidden, so each person only sees their own.

Q: Do capital letters matter in an email address?
A: No. Email addresses aren’t case-sensitive, so capital letters are treated as lower case. Spaces do matter, though. There are never any spaces in an email address.

Q: Can I unsend an email?
A: Only for a few seconds. Click Undo straight after you click Send. Gmail gives you 5 seconds unless you change it in Settings (up to 30), and Outlook.com up to 10 seconds once you’ve switched Undo send on. After that the email has gone.

Q: What happens if I send an email to the wrong address?
A: If the address doesn’t exist, the email comes back to you with a message saying it couldn’t be delivered. If it belongs to someone else, they get your email and you can’t get it back, so always check the address before you click Send.

Q: Is email free?
A: Yes. Gmail, Outlook.com and Yahoo Mail are all free to use. You only need an internet connection.

Summary

Using email isn’t difficult once you’ve got the basics:

• Type email addresses as one word, with no spaces, and check them before you send.
• Click Compose or New mail, fill in To, Subject and your message, then click Send.
• Use Cc to copy people in, and Bcc to keep their addresses private.
• Use Reply to answer an email and Forward to pass it on.

It’s always worth having a little practice, just to see how things work. You could rope in a friend or family member to bombard with practice messages, or, possibly better, email yourself. Type your own email address in the To box and the message will go out and come straight back in. That way, no one else sees your mistakes.