Emails follow physical and digital paths, no they aren’t teleported..
Step 1: Draft your Crafty Content & Hit Send
Step 2: The Email goes into an SMTP Email Server (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol)
Step 3: Email Goes into que to wait to be processed
Step 4: Domain Names are looked up on a DNS – (Dynamic Name System)
Step 5: The DNS Returns the IP Address of Where the Email Is Going – (Internet Protocol Address) so the SMTP server knows where to send your email
Step 6: WAIT, first the SMTP Server must connect with the Recipient’s SMTP Server, the Router takes IP Address finds the fastest path through the firewall, onto the interwebs.
Step 7: Email hops from router to routers all over the World
Step 8: The last hop exists the internet and passes through hthe firewall of the recipients network through the firewall into recipients router, to the recipients SMTP server
Bare in mind the Email has not been sent yet, all of this was just to establish a connection
Step 9: Sender SMTP says Howdy
Step 10: Receiving SMTP responds with Howdy how ya doing?
Step 11: Sending SMTP says I’m trying to send an email
Step 12: DNS validation that the sender is who they say they are
Step 13: If valid and not some spoof SMTP says ok – Email Spoofing
Step 14: sending smtp pushes email to the router for delivery, router breaks the email into pieces packets – packets are sent at one time
Step 15: Recipients router pieces email back together packet by packet
Step 16: The email is delivered to the SMTP server
Step 17: The email is checked for spam against 3rd party servers and internal databases, if all ok it goes into an email queue, picked up by POP3 = post office protocol 3, retrieved by the email client, checked against a series of spam rules before being viewed
The best of all of this happens at near the speed of light, and this is why email is amazing
http://luizcentenaro.com/email-hit-send