They’re all related but different.
Based on the questions I get, it’s clear that the differences between email domains, accounts, addresses, and aliases are commonly confused.
It doesn’t help that the industry uses the terms inconsistently.
Most folks understand domains more or less, but the difference between an email address and an email account? That’s not always clear.
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Email domains, accounts, addresses, and aliases
Email terminology can be confusing. An email domain (e.g., “askleo.com”) represents an organization. An email address (e.g., “leo@askleo.com”) directs messages to a specific mailbox. An email account is the mailbox and its associated folders. Aliases are different addresses delivering to the same mailbox.
It’s time for a metaphor!
Imagine a large office building. This office building has hundreds of employees, and deep down in the basement is a mail room that receives tons of paper mail delivered by the postal service every day.
Domains and servers
You probably already know what a domain is. “Askleo.com” is a domain, as is “amazon.com”, “microsoft.com”, and “facebook.com”. Those represent businesses or organizations on the internet. Usually, they have a website associated with them, though it’s not technically required.
The domain is the address of our office building. The postal service delivers all the mail for anyone in that building to the back door, where they drop it in a big lump. That’s the equivalent of the internet handing off all email addressed to that domain to the mail server for that domain.
A server is a computer system on which the domain’s services, like the website and email, live. It transmits email messages between email providers, webmail services, email software, and more.
The mail server in our building is the team of hard-working mail clerks who pick up the mail from the back door, carry it down to the basement, and sort it.
All the internet knows is “mail for this domain is handled by that server”.
Accounts
An account is where email sent to you lands — a mailbox and any associated folders within — and from where you can send email.1 It’s a relationship between you and your email provider.
An account is equivalent to the physical mailbox of each employee in our building.
Just as a physical mailbox has a lock and key, to access your email account, you must supply your account ID and password to access your email mailbox. An account ID may be:
- The email address (i.e. “example@gmail.com”)
- The first part of the email address (i.e. “example”)
- Something completely different (i.e. “user141235”)
Any of those identify the account, but only the first is an email address.
This is one reason that when you log in to most desktop email programs, you’re asked for both your account ID and your email address; they may be different. Years ago, for example, I was “user123123” to my ISP, but they provided me with an email address “something@randomisp.com”.
Addresses and aliases
An email address — say “leo@randomisp.com” — is the name of a mailbox. The domain — “randomisp.com” — identifies the server that handles the email. The name part — “leo@” — defines the specific email account to receive that email.
Each employee in our office building might go by several names; each of those is an address or alias. I might go by Leo, Leonard, or Chief Technology Officer, and the mail clerks know to deliver all the mail addressed to any of those to my single mailbox.
An email alias is another email address that lands in the same email account. For example, email sent to leo@askleo.com and email sent to sales@askleo.com — two different email addresses — ends up in the same mailbox. They are two aliases of a single account.
Extending the metaphor
Your mail program is like the clerk who takes the mail out of your box and delivers it to your desk for you to read.
Perhaps the mail clerk recognizes and automatically throws away junk mail; that would be equivalent to your spam filter.
If mail comes to the building for someone who doesn’t work there, the clerks mark it as “unknown/return to sender”. Email systems often do the same thing; it’s called a bounce.
Do this
Every so often, you hear someone proclaim that email is dead. Far from it; email is alive and well and the backbone of digital commerce, information flow, and person-to-person connection.
Hopefully, understanding how domains, accounts, and addresses relate will help you better appreciate the digital magic that gets your message from point to point. It can also enable you to use some features, like multiple addresses and accounts, to manage your digital information flow.
If nothing else, now you understand why, when configuring your email program, it asks for both email address and account. They’re different, yet related, things.
Use one of your email addresses (or aliases) for this: Subscribe to Confident Computing! Less frustration and more confidence, solutions, answers, and tips in your inbox every week.
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Footnotes & References
1: Technically an oversimplification, but still accurate in most cases.
Hi,
My internet provider (which actually has not provided access to internet in the past couple of years- another story there) plans to end my relationship with them at the end of March 2023. They tell me they will delete all my mail. Currently, my email is with them and they use WebMail, who they have a contract with. I have another computer set up on Linux with Thunderbird on it. I can get my mail onto Thunderbird by clicking ‘get mail’ when on that computer. Will this email be able to show the content of the emails on Thunderbird once the company deletes my email from WebMail?
I also have a few domains. I will also have to get a new email address (after 20+ yrs), since the account with the ISP will be no more. How do I set up an email connected to my domain, and do I have to have these domains actively hosted somewhere, so that they are active on the web in order to get email from them? I think they are all hosted currently, but not active- when you click on one of them you get a page saying ‘future home of…’
I do not understand how to change this, other than I think I would be having a different server. (I am assuming this server is the company hosting my domains?) But how does the new server get all my stored emails that are in files so I do not lose the content of those emails?
Does Thunderbird already have all that content? Meaning, once the ISP deletes, will the content still be there on Thunderbird? Or will it be lost/inaccessible once the company I am currently with deletes everything?
Does Thunderbird have its own server, and these emails that are on Thunderbird still will have all the content on them and stay accessible after the current ISP deletes everything? Sorry- this is confusing to me, and my IT guy is not available for the next 3 months! I have to figure out how to preserve all my stored emails (many of which are in folders on the WebMail) and change my email address. I hear that having one attqached to my own domain prevents these issues should an ISP decide they are bailing on their customer. Is that true? I wish I knew something!
Thunderbird does not have its own server — all email is hosted EITHER on your computer, OR your email provider’s servers (or both). This depends on how you configure your account in thunderbird. For a move I recommend configuring with POP3 which will download everything to your PC.
I have an article that goes over the options when your ISP goes away. I’ll refer you there to start: How Do I Keep My Email Address When I Change My ISP?