Almost everyone has at least one email account these days. Simply put, an email address may even be required to register for a social media application or a website. The basic idea of ​​e-mail, which is more often used in such works and occupies an important place in our lives, is also in instant message applications. send the messages from the sender to the recipient lies.

Even though email technology is based on the same idea as instant message technology, how come emails are compared to instant messages? delivered afterwards? Have you ever thought about this before? Let’s take a look at why email messages are delivered later than instant messages.

First, it is necessary to understand the working logic of email, which is similar to leaving a letter at the post office.

When you try to send your email to someone, many messages appear in the background before the email reaches the recipient. technical action is performed. If we briefly discuss these processes; When you click the “send email” button, Gmail, Outlook, or any email client you use is the first to go. connect to the server. The outgoing server verifies the sender’s information and places the message in the outgoing queue for transmission. When the connection is established, a message is sent to the other party’s server. To explain this situation with a simple example, we can compare it with going to the post office and leaving a letter or going to the courier office and delivering the cargo.

In the continuation of the process, when the email reaches the receiving server, the receiving server checks the email address, checking for spam and viruses (These checks vary depending on the email client.) leave it in the inbox. When the recipient refreshes their mailbox, the client checks for something new and leaves the message in the recipient’s email inbox.

We’ve looked at the working logic of email, but let’s not look at the instant message logic, shall we?

The difference between instant messaging and other forms of communication to a real-time nature that it has. Today, providing instant messaging; There are dozens of messaging apps that users can use based on their preferences, such as WhatsApp, Telegram, BIP, and even Twitter’s DM feature. These messaging apps allow millions of people from all over the world to communicate with each other every day.

When you use a messaging application, there is a direct connection between you and the other person, as if you were looking at them face to face. The central server of the application determines who is online, the IP address of everyone online sends it to your machine. In this way, when you send a message to someone, the central server straight to you It connects it to the recipient’s machine and then provides the ability to send messages in real time. Therefore, ‘online’ has its pros and cons.

Instant messaging applications run fast because the sender and receiver use the same application, and the speed difference with emails starts here because they are processed on the same server.

So where does this speed difference come from? Let’s combine some more basics.

The main reason why emails take minutes or even hours to reach the recipient with a number of servers they are designed to work. Unlike instant messages, emails have to circulate between different locations before landing in the recipient’s inbox. It works on the mail archive and forwarding model, messages are stored on the server until delivered to the recipient.

E-mail operation also has the advantage of server backups, that is, if a server crashes during the message, the message is sent to the backup server. If the email is not delivered, the servers make several more attempts to send the message. That is, the email system will never send instant messages. not designed. Still, today’s email infrastructures have made tremendous strides in the exchange of messages, but delays still occur despite these advances.

Instant messaging services real time It’s designed to be the sender’s message, so if the sender’s message isn’t delivered to the recipient, he forgets it and moves on. Instant messaging programs don’t bother to resend the message, unlike email services. That’s why emails aren’t always as fast as instant messages.

Sources: Zoho, Science ABC, Ask Leo