Email basics

'Email' stands for 'electronic mail' and an email is a message communicated over the internet. You can send attachments, such as word or picture files, with an email.

You can send one email to as many people as you like simultaneously. Similarly, when you reply to (or forward) an email you can send your reply (or forwarded email) to one or more recipients at the same time.

An email address is a bit like a mailing address only it's 'on the internet'.

All email addresses have '@' somewhere in the middle. With an individual's address, the bit that comes before the '@' is usually personal to that individual (e.g. user). The bit that comes after the '@' is usually the domain name of that individual's email service provider (e.g. 'btinternet.com'). So: user@btinternet.com is a complete email address.

It's important to remember that you need to type email addresses with care - make a typing mistake and your recipient won't get your email - it may even go to someone else with a similar name!

You chose your email address (your BT Yahoo! Mail address is also your BT Total Broadband username) and password when you signed up for BT Total Broadband. These details were also sent to you by email or letter. If you can't remember either, please call us on 0800 800 150.

Webmail is email that you can access via a web site. Your BT Yahoo! Mail service is a webmail service, and you can access it at bt.yahoo.com/webmail

Being able to access your email via a web site is really handy because it means you can use your email (and in the case of your BT Yahoo! account, your contacts, calendar and notepad) anywhere in the world as long as you can get on the internet. So it's easy to keep in touch while travelling or on holiday.

It makes sense to have your all your friends' contact details and email address easily accessible in the address book that comes with your webmail account. This makes them accessible to you whenever and wherever you log on and want to send an email. When you send an email to someone for the first time, you can choose to have their email saved automatically in your address book.

Better still: you've a calendar you can access via webmail. You can use it to remind you of important dates such as birthdays and anniversaries.

There's a notepad in your account which can be very useful if you haven't a pen to hand.