Email, as we use the word today, was effectively invented in 1971, when engineer Ray Tomlinson created the first networked email system on ARPANET and introduced the use of the @ symbol in addresses.

Quick Scoop: Key Points

  • The first true email system that could send messages between different computers on a network was built in 1971 by Ray Tomlinson at BBN, working on ARPANET.
  • He adapted an existing program (SNDMSG) so users could send text messages to other machines, not just people on the same computer.
  • Tomlinson also chose and popularized the @ sign to separate the user name from the host name in an email address (user@host).
  • Earlier ā€œemail-likeā€ systems existed as far back as 1965 (such as MITā€™s MAILBOX), but they only let users leave messages for others on the same machine, not over a network.

So if youā€™re answering ā€œwhen was email inventedā€ in a modern sense, the widely accepted answer is 1971 , with credit going to Ray Tomlinson on ARPANET.

TL;DR: Email was invented in 1971 by Ray Tomlinson, who sent the first network email over ARPANET and created the user@host address format we still use today.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.