Good Email Manners Matter
We’ve had hundreds of readers send pet peeves. Do you know what most of them are? They’re about email. Yes, about junky forwards, forwards with everyone else’s address showing up in the cc: field, etc.
We started thinking that perhaps many people really don’t know what good email etiquette is, so here are a few (there are more) rules of etiquette to guide you. We’re sure there are more; maybe you can think of some to add.
EMAIL ETIQUETTE
- Do not send messages without a subject line
- Do not send a 2nd email to complain “the first” was not answered quick enough; keep in mind some people are not on their computers every day
- Do not click reply to an old message and talk about something completely different from the subject line
- When responding to a message leave the original message intact
- Do not include oversized attachments in email; try to keep them below 500 kb, or send an email to the recipient and warn them you have a large file ready to be sent
- Do not send exe files in email; many email services will block the email
- Never pass on warnings or other alerts by email that say “send to all your friends”. The majority of them are hoaxes.
- Do not use “Spam Challenge” emails and expect people to prove themselves, especially to a company since most companies would not be able to do this. And, spammers could send these same mails and fool people into “proving” they exist for nefarious reasons.
- Do not use “vacation responders”. Your close friends will know if you are gone; everyone else can wait until you get home. If you really need to access email use a web mail account like Gmail you can access from anywhere
- Do not use or expect others to allow “read receipts”. If someone wants you to know your mail has been read, they will respond to you .
- Don’t send mails with cc’s of all your friends; be sure you use bcc.
- Don’t assume because you have a high-speed connection that everyone else does too. There are still many people using dial-up. Nothing is more irritating to those folks than receiving an embedded video they can’t watch, or a huge embedded image that takes them fifteen or twenty minutes to download.
Great article! One of the most difficult things I have faced with emailing is getting people to use BCC when sending one email to multiple addresses. My friends cannot understand that often those long lists of names/addresses placed in TO or CC are then on display for the world to see. And often those names/addresses are “harvested” and used to send spam emails (or worse).
Some people cannot find” bcc” on their email program. That’s embarrassing for them, because they have never been taught and people keep nagging them about it.. They will swear they just don’t have it.. Assure them that it IS there, but just out of sight.! They will have to slowly mouse over, without either right or left click, the blank area all around where they usually address their email. Lo and behold it usually pops right right up in front of them! Then it is easy for them to use.
Hi TC & EB,
How many times must certain individuals be told to delete all the addresses from email before sending, or are they too dumb to understand, add to this the insidious Incredimail with the big logos, time is wasted clicking all the little circles with x’s which turn brown to delete them one by one, and all this rubbish is from only two people, who at least send interesting articles.
I had a old old system and it took a month to get a sever from 40 miles away to install over last years holidays when we moved. I am able to get your news letter till the end of this year and they say after a year all should have our new e-maill adress;I lost all of everyones adresses=e-mails and phone in the old Dell it just did not make the trip in the cold and after 20002 it was time to update.I now have windows 8.1 on a laptop.Love the laptop;the sever says won’t be able to get any e-mails but from the home page mailbox till late this summer;but I don’t have my letter that lets me download any of the pretty stationery I used to use;the music,scrolling and all.Would you be so kind to send me a new letter so I can and I know till I am able to send from something other than home page probaly can’t use it .
I have a friend in a different city and she has 8.1 and she is not able to get any of heers to work anymore unless she said you had a way you could do it ;but it cost $$$ ?How much is it and will it work whenMicrosoft says it will be updateing to Windows 10 in Sept?
Thanks,Marilyn(Marden)
The operating system does not matter – mail servers matter. Make sure you’re using the correct IMAP/POP3 and SMTP servers.
I would add “Do not send political or religious related emails unless you are 100% aware that it is acceptable to the recipient.”
And let’s not forget the infamous “reply” and “reply all”. I often think that the “reply all” should be the option that’s hidden, rather then the “bcc”. I’ve used email for many years for both business and personal use and I can remember only once where “reply all” was useful, convenient, or appropriate, and never necessary. I wouldn’t be opposed if the option was scrapped altogether.
Great reminders. By the way, regarding Barbara Brooker’s remarks, recipients of religious related emails can always delete them if they don’t want to read them. They are far better than the trash that is usually sent. It’s nice to receive something more inspiring and life enriching once in awhile.