How long does it take for e-mail to be delivered?

Answer 1

Depends on a lot of factors: speed of mail servers, length of mail queue, internet traffic, message throttling.

Shouldn't take more than a minute though.

Answer 2

That depends on the stability of the networks across which the messages are delivered.

For most private individuals, sending e-mail to other individuals across web based e-mail (Yahoo!, AOL, Hotmail), the delivery is almost instantaneous.

For E-mail sent between (or to) private intranets (business networks), there may be a delay. If one of the intranets was down (nightly lockdowns, or down for service), then the E-mail is "delivered" when the network is back up.

Answer 3

5 seconds

Answer 4

I registered this morning (clue 6) at around 7:30 CDT and that i won the confirmation/validation e mail actually seconds later. i exploit hotmail which i think of is faster than different emailing websites. yet i know that yahoo and different emailing internet site purchasers mentioned it took them as much as an afternoon or greater.. reliable luck!

Answer 5

It depends on a number of factors:

Let's assume that I want to send a piece of e-mail. My e-mail ID is brain, and I have my account on howstuffworks.com. I want to send e-mail to [e-mail]. I am using a stand-alone e-mail client like Outlook Express.

When I set up my account at howstuffworks, I told Outlook Express the name of the mail server -- mail.howstuffworks.com. When I compose a message and press the Send button, here is what happens:

1. Outlook Express connects to the SMTP server at mail.howstuffworks.com using port 25.

2. Outlook Express has a conversation with the SMTP server, telling the SMTP server the address of the sender and the address of the recipient, as well as the body of the message.

3. The SMTP server takes the "to" address ([e-mail]) and breaks it into two parts:
* The recipient name (jsmith)
* The domain name (mindspring.com)

If the "to" address had been another user at howstuffworks.com, the SMTP server would simply hand the message to the POP3 server for howstuffworks.com (using a little program called the delivery agent). Since the recipient is at another domain, SMTP needs to communicate with that domain.

4. The SMTP server has a conversation with a Domain Name Server, or DNS (see How Web Servers Work for details). It says, "Can you give me the IP address of the SMTP server for mindspring.com?" The DNS replies with the one or more IP addresses for the SMTP server(s) that Mindspring operates.

5. The SMTP server at howstuffworks.com connects with the SMTP server at Mindspring using port 25. It has the same simple text conversation that my e-mail client had with the SMTP server for HowStuffWorks, and gives the message to the Mindspring server. The Mindspring server recognizes that the domain name for jsmith is at Mindspring, so it hands the message to Mindspring's POP3 server, which puts the message in jsmith's mailbox.

If, for some reason, the SMTP server at HowStuffWorks cannot connect with the SMTP server at Mindspring, then the message goes into a queue. The SMTP server on most machines uses a program called sendmail to do the actual sending, so this queue is called the sendmail queue. Sendmail will periodically try to resend the messages in its queue. For example, it might retry every 15 minutes. After four hours, it will usually send you a piece of mail that tells you there is some sort of problem. After five days, most sendmail configurations give up and return the mail to you undelivered.

The actual conversation that an e-mail client has with an SMTP server is incredibly simple and human readable. It is specified in public documents called Requests For Comments (RFC), and a typical conversation looks something like this:

helo test
250 mx1.mindspring.com Hello abc.sample.com
[220.57.69.37], pleased to meet you
mail from: [e-mail]
250 2.1.0 [e-mail]... Sender ok
rcpt to: [e-mail]
250 2.1.5 jsmith... Recipient ok
data
354 Enter mail, end with "." on a line by itself
from: [e-mail]
to:[e-mail]
subject: testing
John, I am testing...
.
250 2.0.0 e1NMajH24604 Message accepted
for delivery
quit
221 2.0.0 mx1.mindspring.com closing connection
Connection closed by foreign host.

What the e-mail client says is in blue, and what the SMTP server replies is in green. The e-mail client introduces itself, indicates the "from" and "to" addresses, delivers the body of the message and then quits. You can, in fact, telnet to a mail server machine at port 25 and have one of these dialogs yourself -- this is how people "spoof" e-mail.

Depending on the latency of the network (delay), the efficiency of the servers, and the bandwidth of the connections, as well as the distance between the computers, it can take anywhere from instantaneous (milliseconds) up to a few minutes.

Answer 6

almost if other party is on line it won't take a second even..just simple email sent as a normal delivery, you can change the setting and make URGENT..it will be delivered in a second..

Answer 7

depends...sometimes yahoo is wacky, especially if you are sending it to another type email addy, like aol or comcast. But normally it is sent almost instantly.

Answer 8

a few seconds

Answer 9

3.6?