Email, short for electronic mail, is an internet tool that almost everyone uses. It’s a fast way to send messages to individuals or multiple people at once. Setting up and managing your own email account is easy, and there are many free options. The most common free email suppliers are:
For a great introduction to what email is, try out the following resources:
If you will not be accessing your emails and want to let other people know, set up automatic replies. For example, this is great for out-of-office messages to let colleagues know you are on leave. An example automatic reply message:
Hi, I am currently away and will return on [date]. For urgent enquiries, contact [name]. Thank you, [your name]
In Gmail these are called filters, and Outlook calls them rules. Other services may use different terminology. Basically it is a way to automatically send particular emails into a folder as soon as they arrive. Rules/filters are helpful to reduce clutter and distraction in your inbox. Good types of email to filter:
Automatic report messages
Regular eNewsletter subscriptions
Anything you expect to receive often but don’t need to look at immediately. You can create rules targeting a sender’s email address, keywords in the subject line or body, time received, or attachments. Once an email is sorted into a folder using a rule, you can set that folder to automatically archive or delete emails after a specified amount of time.
Outlook has an encryption option that needs to be turned on for each email you send. Encryption converts a message from readable plain text to randomised text; only the intended recipient can read the message. Start a new email, and under Options, select Encrypt. In this menu you can also remove the ability for the recipient to forward the email or use Reply All.