Online Communication - Computing Fundamentals - page 253

To get started with an email client, you set up your account(s) in that program. Your messages
then appear in the Inbox, and you can compose your own messages from that program's interface.
The Inbox may include a reading pane , which shows the content of the selected message.

When composing email, you must enter a recipient, a subject, and a message body. You may option-
ally include an attachment. When addressing email, the To box is for the main recipients, Cc is for
those who will receive a copy, and Bcc is for those who will receive an undisclosed copy. You may
optionally select recipients from the Contacts list in Outlook (or equivalent in your email application).

Most email clients enable you to save email addresses of people with whom you correspond and
use them when addressing messages. In Outlook, this is the Contacts list.

You can reply to a received message by clicking the Reply button; other options include Reply All
and Forward .

An out-of-office message sends an automatic reply to anyone who emails you while you are
away. You can set this up in Outlook only if you use an Exchange server. Otherwise, you must set
it up with your mail provider. You may be able to configure it from the web-based interface that
the provider supplies for your email account.

A signature is text that is automatically appended to outgoing emails. You can set this up in your
mail client.

To avoid having your mail file get too big, you can periodically archive messages, which means to
transfer messages to an auxiliary storage folder based on criteria you specify.

Unsolicited junk mail, also known as spam , can be minimized using mail filtering software, which
may include both blacklists and whitelists .

Key Terms
archive
attachment
automatic reply
Bcc
blacklist
blog
blog platform
Cc
channel
chat room
Contacts
email
Facebook
FaceTime
forum
forum thread
Forward
HTTP email account
IMAP account
Instagram
instant messaging (IM)
Internet Mail Access Protocol (IMAP)
Internet Relay Chat (IRC)
mail client
mail server

microblog
newsgroup
newsreader
out-of-office message
POP account
post
Post Office Protocol (POP)
pull technology
push technology
reading pane
Reddit
Reply
Reply All
search engine optimization (SEO)
Short Message Service (SMS)
signature
Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP)
Skype
social network
spam
store-and-forward
strong password
tag (also hashtag) (social media)
texting
Twitter