How email works and fixing email problems

All Flying Cow Design Hosting Plans come with enough email accounts for all of your needs. But how does an email account work and when it doesn't, what can you do about it?

The best technologies are the ones that just work and that you you can rely on without too much intervention, and your email is no exception.

How email works

1. When you have created an email to send to someone on your email program (email client), and click the send button, your email program connects to your Internet Service Providers (ISP) email server to see if it can establish a communication with it.
2. When it has created a connection it breaks your email message down into smaller pieces (packets) to better enable transmission of your email. These 'packets' travel to the destination email server and get reassembled there into the complete email once again so that it can be retrieved.
3. But how does it get to the destination? Each email address (eg. person@domainname.com) is comprised of an account name ('person') and the domain name ('domainname.com') . Each domain name also 'resolves' to a unique Internet Protocol (IP) number. The IP number acts like a street address on the internet to find the computer that is running the email server for that destination domain name. That destination email server at domainname.com is then asked if it has a mailbox (email account) called 'person' on it or not, and if there is room to deliver the email being sent.
4. If there is an account on the destination email server, and if there is room for the email to be accepted then the email gets delivered to the email server for that account.
5. The destination email server then waits for the recipient to log in to their 'person@domainname.com' email address using their email program , and the email gets downloaded to their program where it can be read.

Email Problems: What can go wrong?

1. There is a typo in the email address entered, and therefore the destination email server cannot find an account by that name.
2. The destination email account has used up all its space alloted to it and cannot accept any more emails.
3. The email server sending the email may be recognised as a source of spam and the destination email server refuses to accept email from it.
4. The email being sent may contain phrases or content that triggers spam filters (spam detection programs) on the senders email server and the senders email server refuses to send the email.
5. The email being sent may contain phrases or content that triggers spam filters (spam detection programs) on the destination email server and the destination email server refuses to accept the email.
6. Email programs on the recipients computer may have spam or virus software that automatically (sometimes incorrectly) deletes the email or its contents before it can be read.

Fixing email problems.

1. If you are not receiving emails, then the first thing to look at is if your email inbox is full. This is usually the result of your email program downloading your emails form the email server but not then REMOVING them from your account on the email server. If you have a hosting plan, then login into that and check to see if it is full. If you use an email address from your ISP, call them to see if it is full. Remove old emails from it to allow more space for new ones.
2. You may still be receiving your missing email but not know it. Check any 'Bulk Mail' or 'Spam' folders you may have and see if the email got redirected into there.
3. If you have a webmail account, so you can use your internet browser to access your emails on the web email server, try using that to see if your email arrived at the email server. This way you bypass any issues you may have with your regular email program and any virus scanners or firewalls etc. If you see your unread email in your webmail, then the chances are you have 'issues' with your email program or spam/virus program (or firewall). And something is stopping your email program from logging in and getting your emails.
4. If you see the emails in webmail then ask your ISP or your hosting plan tech support for the correct SMTP (sending email server) and POP3 (receiving email server) details to enter into your email program. Check this information is correct.
5. If both SMTP and POP3 details are correct then it is something else on your computer that is causing your email program from receiving emails. This could also be your computers firewall settings. Contact your tech support for your email program to diagnose.