The History of Email
From Ray Tomlinson's first message in 1971 to the authentication wars of today. Every milestone, hack, law, and pop culture moment that shaped how we communicate.
Spam the Meat vs Spam the Email: Yes, Hormel Has a Museum
There's a canned meat called SPAM. There's also junk email called spam. The email kind got its name from a Monty Python comedy sketch where Vikings keep singing 'SPAM' over and over until nobody can hear anything else — just like junk email drowns out real messages.
The First Email Ever Sent
A computer engineer sent a message from one computer to another sitting right next to it, and accidentally invented how billions of people would talk to each other.
The @ Symbol: From Medieval Monks to Email Addresses
The little @ sign in email addresses is really, really old — monks and shopkeepers used it hundreds of years ago. Then a computer engineer picked it for email because nobody else was using it on keyboards.
CC and BCC: How Carbon Paper Created Email's Most Used Fields
CC and BCC in email got their names from special paper that made copies when you typed on a typewriter. CC means everyone can see who got the copy, and BCC means it's a secret copy.
The First Spam Email That Made $13 Million
A computer salesman sent an email to 400 people who didn't ask for it, made $13 million, and accidentally invented the most annoying thing about email.
SMTP: The Protocol That Standardized Email
Before SMTP, every computer system had its own way of sending email. SMTP was like agreeing on a universal postal system so everyone's mail could reach everyone else.
The Hidden Metadata in Every Email: Headers Explained
Every email has a secret section most people never see that tells the whole story of where it came from, which computers it passed through, and whether it's legit or fake.
The Email Client Wars: From Elm to Gmail
The programs people use to read email have changed a lot over the years, from simple text screens to fancy apps, and each new one changed how people thought about email.
From LISTSERV to Substack: The Evolution of One-to-Many Email
People have been using email to send the same message to lots of people since the 1980s. First it was for college professors, now it's how writers and creators make a living.
Out of Office: The Art and Absurdity of Auto-Replies
When you go on vacation, your email can automatically tell people you're not there. Some people started writing really funny or creative away messages, and it became a whole thing.
SMTP, POP3, and IMAP: The Three Protocols That Run Email
Email uses three sets of rules: one for sending messages (SMTP), one for downloading them (POP3), and one for reading them on the server (IMAP). They're super old but still work great.
Microsoft Mail and cc:Mail Launch the Corporate Email Era
Before 1989, most office workers had never sent an email. Then Microsoft and Lotus made programs that let people in the same office email each other, and pretty soon nobody could imagine working without it.
The Email Signature: From Business Cards to Inspirational Quotes
At the bottom of emails, people started adding their name, phone number, and other stuff — like a digital business card. Then some people went way overboard with quotes and pictures.
PGP, S/MIME, and Why Most People Still Don't Encrypt Email
Someone made a way to lock your emails so only the person you're writing to can read them. It works great, but it's kind of hard to use, so almost nobody bothers.
MIME: When Email Learned to Send More Than Text
Before MIME, email could only send plain text — no pictures, no files, no formatting. MIME taught email how to carry anything, like upgrading from a postcard to a shipping box.
AOL Brings Email to the Masses
Before AOL, email was mostly for nerds and scientists. AOL made it so easy that your grandma could send an email — and millions of grandmas did.
How Spam Got Its Name: From Monty Python to Your Inbox
A funny TV sketch about a restaurant that serves nothing but SPAM meat got so famous that people started calling annoying repeated messages 'spam' too.
Email Design: From Plain Text to Responsive Templates
Emails used to be just plain words with no pictures or colors. Then people tried to make them look like web pages, but every email program showed them differently. It took twenty years to figure out how to make emails look good on all devices.
The First Email Newsletters and the Birth of Permission Marketing
Some smart people figured out that if you only send emails to people who ask for them, those people actually read them and buy stuff. That idea seems obvious now, but it was a big deal.
The Nigerian Prince Scam: History of Email's Most Famous Fraud
Someone sends you an email pretending to be a prince or rich person who needs help moving money, but it's all a trick to steal your money. It's the most famous email scam ever.
Classmates.com Pioneers Email Marketing to Millions
Classmates.com was a website that helped people find old school friends. They sent millions of emails saying 'someone from your class is looking for you!' and basically invented email marketing before anyone called it that.
The First Email Autoresponder Changed Marketing Forever
Someone figured out that a computer could automatically send a reply email the instant someone signed up for something. This meant businesses could respond to thousands of people at once without any humans doing the work.
HTML vs. Plain Text: How Rich Email Won (and the Backlash)
Emails used to be just plain words with no pictures or colors. Then people figured out how to make them look like web pages, and some people loved it but others thought it was a terrible idea.
The Evolution of Phishing: From AOL Tricks to Targeted Attacks
Phishing is when someone pretends to be a company or person you trust and tricks you into giving them your password or personal information through a fake email or website.
Hotmail Launches — Free Web Email Changes Everything
Before Hotmail, you needed special software to check email. Hotmail let you check it from any computer with a web browser — for free. Everyone went crazy for it.
Microsoft Outlook Launches and Conquers the Corporate Inbox
Microsoft made an email program that came free with their office software, and since every office already used Microsoft, it became the email app everyone at work had to use.
Reply All Disasters: The Worst Corporate Email Storms in History
Sometimes someone accidentally hits 'reply all' on a big email, and then everyone starts replying to tell people to stop replying, and it gets so bad it crashes the email system.
Sanford Wallace: The Rise and Fall of the Spam King
One guy figured out he could make money by sending millions of annoying messages to people, and even when courts told him to stop, he just kept finding new ways to do it.
The First Attempts to Outlaw Spam in America
People were getting so many junk emails that states started making laws against it, but the laws were confusing and didn't work very well because the internet doesn't have state borders.
Constant Contact at 25: A Quarter-Century of Small Business Email
A company was started in 1998 to help small shops and restaurants send nice-looking emails to their customers. They made it so simple that millions of regular people could do it without knowing any tech stuff.
Tracking Pixels: How Invisible Images Watch Your Email
When you open an email, a tiny invisible picture loads from the sender's computer, which tells them that you opened it, when you opened it, and sometimes where you are.
COPPA and Email Marketing to Children
In 1998, the US government made a law saying websites can't collect email addresses from kids under 13 without their parents saying it's okay. This stopped companies from sending marketing emails to little kids.
You've Got Mail: The Movie That Made Email Romantic
A famous movie came out where two people fell in love by writing emails to each other, and it made everyone think email was exciting and romantic.
The Permission Marketing Revolution and Double Opt-In
Instead of sending emails to people who didn't ask for them, companies started only emailing people who specifically said 'yes, I want to hear from you.' Then they asked again to make sure. This made email marketing way more effective.
From 'Dear {Name}' to Hyper-Personalization
Emails used to just say 'Dear Customer.' Then companies learned to put your name in the email. Then they learned to show you products you actually looked at. Now emails can be totally different for every single person who gets them.
The Melissa Virus: Email's First Mass-Mailing Worm Infects 100,000 Machines
A guy hid a computer virus in a Word document and emailed it to people. When they opened it, the virus sent itself to 50 more people from their address book. It spread so fast that big companies had to turn off their email for days.
How A/B Testing Transformed Email Marketing
Instead of guessing which email works better, marketers started sending two different versions to small groups and seeing which one got more people to open and click. Then they sent the winning version to everyone else.
How CAPTCHAs Were Invented to Fight Email Spam
Those annoying tests where you have to type squiggly letters or click on pictures of traffic lights? They were invented because spammers were using robots to create millions of fake email accounts to send junk mail.
The Birth of Transactional Email: From Receipts to Revenue
When you buy something online and get an email saying 'thanks for your order,' that's transactional email. Online stores started sending these around 2000, and now they're some of the most important emails in the world.
ILOVEYOU: The Email Virus That Infected 45 Million Computers
Someone sent an email with the subject 'I Love You' and an attachment. When people opened it, it wrecked their computer and automatically sent itself to everyone in their address book. It spread to 45 million computers in one day.
Rise of Marketing Automation: From Manual Sends to Smart Flows
In the old days, someone had to manually write and send every marketing email. Then companies built software that could automatically send the right email to the right person at the right time — like magic email robots that never sleep.
SpamAssassin: The Open-Source War on Junk Email
A group of volunteer programmers built a free tool that checks emails against hundreds of rules to decide if they're junk, and then gave it away for anyone to use.
The Invention of Drip Campaigns: Automated Email Sequences
Instead of sending one email and hoping for the best, people figured out they could send a series of emails spread out over days or weeks, and each one built on the last one.
EU ePrivacy Directive: Cookie Consent and Email Marketing
The European Union made a rule in 2002 saying companies have to ask permission before sending you marketing emails. They also made rules about website cookies. That's why European websites always ask if you accept cookies.
Paul Graham's Bayesian Spam Filter: The Essay That Changed Everything
Instead of guessing which words mean an email is spam, a programmer said 'let the computer figure it out by looking at lots of real spam and real good email.' It worked amazingly well.
The BlackBerry Craze: When Executives Got Addicted to Mobile Email
A little phone with a tiny keyboard let business people check email anywhere, and they got so hooked on it that people started calling it the CrackBerry.
History of Anti-Spam Legislation Around the World
Countries all over the world have made laws against spam email, but they all work differently. Some say you can send emails unless people say stop. Others say you can't send emails unless people say it's okay first.
The Day AOL Accidentally Became the Biggest Spammer
AOL was the company that fought spam harder than anyone. Then their own computer had a glitch and sent millions of junk emails to their own customers. It was like the fire department accidentally starting a fire.
SPF, DKIM, DMARC: Email Authentication's Long Road
Email was invented without a way to prove who really sent a message. Scientists spent 20 years building three different systems that work together to prove an email is really from who it says it's from.
Sobig.F: The Fastest-Spreading Email Virus in History
A computer virus called Sobig spread so fast through email in 2003 that it accounted for one out of every seventeen emails sent on the entire internet. It made a million copies of itself in one day.
The CAN-SPAM Act: America's First Real Anti-Spam Law
The government made a law saying companies had to include an unsubscribe button in their emails and couldn't lie about who sent them, but many people thought it wasn't strict enough.
Australia's Spam Act 2003: $2.2 Million Per Day Penalty
Australia made a really strict law against spam email in 2003. If you send spam to Australians without permission, you can be fined over two million dollars for every single day you do it. Companies got scared and started following the rules.
Bill Gates Predicts Spam Will Be Solved in Two Years
Bill Gates told everyone in 2004 that spam emails would be gone in two years. It's been over twenty years and we still get spam. Even the smartest people can be really wrong about email.
Email Bankruptcy: When People Just Give Up and Delete Everything
Sometimes people get so many unread emails that they give up, delete them all, and start over. They call it 'email bankruptcy' — like when you owe so much money you just start fresh.
Gmail Launches on April Fools' Day with 1GB Storage
When everyone else gave you a tiny mailbox, Google gave you one 500 times bigger — for free. People thought it was a joke because they announced it on April Fools' Day.
The Death of Email: Predicted Every Year Since 2005
Every year, someone important says email is going to die and be replaced by something new. Every year, more people use email than ever before. It's the cockroach of technology — you can't kill it.
The Economics of Spam: Why Junk Email Is Still Profitable
Imagine you could mail a letter to every house in the world for almost free. Even if only one person in a million buys your thing, you'd still make money. That's why spam exists.
The Segmentation Revolution: Different Messages for Different People
Instead of sending the same email to everyone, marketers figured out they should send different emails to different groups of people. Like, new customers get a welcome email while loyal fans get a special deal.
A/B Testing in Email: From Gut Feeling to Data-Driven Decisions
Instead of guessing which email will work better, you send two slightly different versions to small groups and see which one wins. Then you send the winner to everyone else.
BlackBerry: The Device That Made Email Addictive
BlackBerry made a phone that let people check email anywhere, and everyone got so hooked on it they called it 'CrackBerry.' Then the iPhone came along and did everything better.
Twitter Launches, Pundits Predict Email's Death (Again)
A new website called Twitter let people send short messages to their followers. Everyone said it would replace email. But people kept using email for important stuff and Twitter for chatting, and both grew at the same time.
Inbox Zero: Merlin Mann's Productivity Philosophy
A guy named Merlin Mann said your email inbox should be empty at the end of every day. Not by ignoring emails, but by deciding what to do with each one right away. Millions of people tried it, and it became a whole movement.
iPhone Puts Email in Everyone's Pocket
Before the iPhone, checking email on your phone was like trying to read a book through a keyhole. The iPhone made it as easy as checking your pocket.
Sent from My iPhone: The Most-Read Marketing Line Ever
When the iPhone came out, every email sent from it automatically said 'Sent from my iPhone' at the bottom, and most people never changed it. It was like free advertising that billions of people read.
Obama's 2008 Campaign Revolutionizes Email Fundraising
When Barack Obama ran for president, his team sent really smart emails that raised over $500 million from regular people giving small amounts. They tested everything — subject lines, send times, button colors — and figured out tricks that every email marketer still uses today.
Spam's Share of Email: From 5% to 85% and Back Down
At its worst, almost 9 out of every 10 emails sent in the whole world were junk. Today it's closer to 4 or 5 out of 10, but that's still a LOT of garbage.
Google Wave: The 'Future of Email' That Lasted One Year
Google tried to build a super-email that did everything at once — email, chat, documents, wiki — but it was so confusing that nobody could figure out what to use it for.
Facebook Launches Messages, Tries to Kill Email
Facebook tried to make its own email system because Mark Zuckerberg said email was too slow for young people. But people kept using regular email anyway.
Amazon SES: When Cloud Giant Pricing Hit the Email Market
Amazon started selling email sending for so cheap that all the other email companies had to either lower their prices or find new things to offer that Amazon didn't.
The Epsilon Data Breach: 60 Million Email Addresses Exposed
A company that sent emails for tons of big brands got hacked, and the bad guys got 60 million people's email addresses. It led to a massive wave of phishing attacks.
Mailchimp's Free Plan Democratizes Email Marketing
Mailchimp said 'email marketing shouldn't cost money if you're just starting out,' and suddenly millions of small businesses and bloggers could send professional newsletters for free.
When Email Subject Lines Got Colorful With Emoji
Email marketers discovered that putting little pictures like stars and hearts in the subject line of their emails made more people open them. Then everybody started doing it and it became less special.
Yahoo Breach: All 3 Billion Accounts Compromised
Yahoo got hacked so badly that every single person with a Yahoo account — all 3 billion of them — had their information stolen. It's still the biggest hack in history.
Business Email Compromise: The $50 Billion Email Scam
Bad guys pretend to be someone's boss in an email and trick them into sending money to the wrong bank account. It has stolen more money than any other type of computer crime.
Gmail Introduces Tabs and Email Marketers Panic
Gmail started putting promotional emails in a separate tab instead of the main inbox, and email marketers freaked out because they thought nobody would ever see their emails again.
Google Kills Reader, Email Newsletters Rise From the Ashes
Google shut down a tool people used to follow blogs and news. Without it, people went back to getting content through email newsletters, and newsletters became a huge business.
Every 'Email Killer' Has Failed: Slack, Wave, Facebook, and More
Big tech companies keep making new apps that they say will replace email, but people keep using email anyway because it works with everything and everyone.
CASL: Canada Passes the World's Toughest Anti-Spam Law
Canada made a super strict rule that says companies can't email you unless you specifically say it's okay, and if they break the rule, they can get a really big fine.
The Sony Pictures Hack: When Private Emails Became Public
Hackers broke into Sony's movie studio computers and released tons of private emails where executives said embarrassing things. It taught everyone that email is never truly private.
Mobile Email Overtakes Desktop for the First Time
For the first time ever, more people read their emails on phones than on computers, which meant every email had to look good on a tiny screen.
Slack Claims to 'Kill Email' — Email Thrives Anyway
A chat app called Slack said it would replace email at work. Companies loved it for quick messages and group chats. But people still needed email for everything outside their company, and Slack itself sent tons of notification emails. Email never went away.
$36 for Every $1: How Email Became Marketing's Best Investment
If you spend one dollar on email marketing, you typically make thirty-six dollars back. No other way of advertising even comes close to being that good of a deal.
Email vs. Social Media: Why Owned Audience Always Wins
When you build a following on social media, the social media company controls who sees your stuff. When you build an email list, nobody can take it away from you.
When Mobile Passed Desktop: Email Design Goes Responsive
When more people started reading email on their phones than computers, email designers had to make emails that look good on tiny screens AND big screens at the same time.
The Podesta Phishing Attack That Changed an Election
Someone tricked a very important political person into clicking a fake link in an email, which let hackers steal all his messages and share them publicly during a big election.
The Hillary Clinton Email Server Controversy
A person running for president used a personal email server at home instead of the official government one, and it caused a huge argument about whether that was safe and allowed.
Substack Challenges Traditional Media with Email Newsletters
A company made it really easy for writers to start their own email newsletters and charge people to read them, and some writers made so much money they quit their newspaper jobs.
WannaCry: The Ransomware Attack That Paralyzed the World
A computer virus locked people's files and demanded money to unlock them. It spread super fast across the world and even shut down hospitals. A young researcher accidentally found a way to slow it down.
How Email Privacy Laws Differ Across 20 Countries
Different countries have different rules about who can send you emails. Some countries are really strict and others are pretty relaxed about it. If you send emails to people around the world, you have to follow all the different rules.
AMP for Email: Google's Bold Bet on Interactive Inboxes
Google tried to make emails work like little websites where you could click buttons and do things right inside the email instead of going to a different page. Most email apps didn't go along with it.
GDPR Takes Effect and Changes Email Marketing Forever
Europe made a big rule that says companies have to ask your permission before collecting your information or emailing you, and they can get in really big trouble if they don't.
Email Reaches 4 Billion Users — More Than Any Social Platform
Email got so big that more people in the world had email than used Facebook, Instagram, or any other social media — combined. Not bad for something invented in the 1970s.
Dark Mode Arrives and Email Designers Panic
When phones got a 'dark background' option, all the emails designed for white backgrounds suddenly looked weird, and designers had to figure out how to make emails look good both ways.
CCPA Brings GDPR-Style Privacy to California
California made a law that lets people find out what information companies have about them, tell companies to delete it, and say no to companies selling their information.
BIMI: Verified Brand Logos Come to the Inbox
When a company sends you an email, you now might see their real logo next to it — like a blue checkmark but for email — so you know it's really from them and not a faker.
The COVID Newsletter Boom: Everyone Became a Writer
When COVID locked everyone at home, tons of people started writing email newsletters because they had time, needed money, or wanted to share information, and lots of people signed up to read them.
SolarWinds: The Supply Chain Attack That Compromised 18,000 Organizations
Hackers snuck bad code into a software update that thousands of companies trusted and installed. Once inside, they read emails and stole secrets from some of the most important organizations in the world.
Microsoft Exchange Zero-Day: 250,000 Email Servers Compromised
Hackers found secret weaknesses in the software that runs many company email systems, and they used them to break into hundreds of thousands of email servers around the world before anyone could fix it.
Apple Mail Privacy Protection Breaks Open Rate Tracking
Apple made it so email senders couldn't tell if you actually opened their email. It was great for privacy but threw a wrench into how email marketers measure success.
Intuit Acquires Mailchimp for $12 Billion
The company that makes TurboTax bought the most famous email marketing company for twelve billion dollars. The founders never took money from investors, so they kept almost all of it.
Mailchimp: From Side Project to $12 Billion Exit
Two guys started a small email newsletter company as a side project, never took money from investors, and 20 years later sold it for $12 billion — one of the biggest deals ever.
Twitter/X Chaos Drives Creators to Email Newsletters
When Twitter got bought and everything went crazy, writers and creators realized they didn't actually own their followers. So they started email newsletters because nobody can take away your email list.
Substack Launches Notes, Blurring the Line Between Email and Social
Substack, the website where people write email newsletters, added a Twitter-like feature called Notes. Now writers could post short updates AND send long emails from the same place. It mixed social media and email together in a new way.
Meta Launches Threads — The Latest 'Email Killer' That Isn't
Meta made a new app called Threads that people said might replace email, just like they said about Facebook, Twitter, Slack, and a dozen other things. Spoiler: email is still here.
Klaviyo: How an Email Platform Built a $10 Billion Business
A company figured out how to help online stores send really smart emails to shoppers — like reminding them about stuff left in their cart — and it worked so well they became worth ten billion dollars.
2024: Email Is Still the Number One Marketing Channel
Even though there are tons of new ways to reach people online — social media, apps, texts — email is still the best way for businesses to talk to customers and make money. More people use email than ever before.
Gmail and Yahoo Require Authentication for Bulk Senders
Gmail and Yahoo told companies that send lots of emails that they have to prove who they really are, or their emails won't get delivered anymore.
ConvertKit to Kit: The Expensive Rebrand Nobody Asked For
A company that helped people send email newsletters changed its name from ConvertKit to Kit, and a lot of people thought it was a waste of money because the old name was already well-known.