Who Invented Email? A Closer Look at Its Origins

We use email daily—whether for work, school, or just to keep up with friends. But have you ever thought about who invented email? It's one of those things that just seems to always have been around, humming quietly behind the scenes as we get our digital work done. But the history behind its invention is actually more complicated and argued about than most people think.

Let's jump into the beginnings of email and see how one of the world's most necessary tools on the internet was developed.

A Quick Glance Back in Time

To see how email developed, we need to travel back to the 1960s and 70s. Computers during this period were large, cumbersome devices that took up whole rooms—and they certainly weren't in anyone's pocket. Communication between computers was largely restricted to messages exchanged on the same system or through punch cards.

In 1965, MIT implemented a system named CTSS (Compatible Time-Sharing System), in which users could send messages to one another on the same computer. It was the first asynchronous human-to-machine human communication, but it wasn't email as we understand it now—no exchange of messages from one computer to another across a network.

Enter Ray Tomlinson

Fast forward to 1971. Computer engineer Ray Tomlinson was at BBN Technologies, a Department of Defense contractor. Tomlinson was dabbling in ARPANET, the precursor to the internet. He had the thought: "What if individuals could exchange messages from one computer to another via a network?"

That’s when he put together a system that could send a file—containing a message—from one computer to another. But here’s the twist: he needed a way to separate the user name from the host machine name. So he chose the now-iconic @ symbol. That small decision is what made “user@domain.com” the standard for email addresses.

Ray Tomlinson later admitted he didn’t think it was a big deal at the time. “I was just fooling around,” he said in interviews. But that little experiment changed the world.

Why the Debate?

You may have heard other names emerging during talk of who created email. One of the most famous is Shiva Ayyadurai, who created a piece of software named "EMAIL" in 1978 when he was still a teenager. His system replicated the interoffice mail system, with directories such as Inbox, Outbox, Memo, etc. Ayyadurai copyrighted his software, which created even more confusion in the tale.

Although Ayyadurai's contribution was genuine and significant—particularly when it came to structuring digital communication—the majority of tech historians concur that Ray Tomlinson's breakthrough in 1971 marked the actual genesis of email as we know it today.

Email Today: From Experiment to Necessity

What began as a small experiment with a handful of machines has become the cornerstone of worldwide communication. Billions of emails are sent daily. It's used for everything from job searches to birthday invitations to running entire businesses.

And yet, it all started with a single concept: facilitating people communicating with one another—even if they weren't on the same computer.

Last Thoughts 

Email did not emerge overnight. It took years, developed by various individuals with various concepts. However, Ray Tomlinson's ingenious solution—transmitting messages over a network employing the "symbol" later invented as the "@" symbol—is widely accepted to be the real birth of email.

So the next time you click "Send," give a moment's appreciation for the humble beginnings of that inbox. It's not just a gadget; it's part of internet history.