The first networked email in 1971 took minutes to pick @ — now 300B emails a day use it

FrnkNlsn · x · 2026-09-05

Ray Tomlinson sent the first networked email in 1971 and invented the @ convention to separate user from host. He chose @ in minutes simply because it was on the keyboard and unused in names — and later admitted he couldn't remember what that first message said. Today the symbol appears in roughly 300 billion emails every day.

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