So, Who Actually Invented Email? (Spoiler: Not the Guy on Your WhatsApp Forward)

If you’ve spent enough time scrolling through Facebook posts or your uncle’s WhatsApp group, you’ve probably come across this claim: “Indian-born genius Shiva Ayyadurai invented email.”

It’s the kind of story that feels good. An underdog kid, immigrant roots, builds something we all use every day. Feels heroic. Feels simple. Problem is—it isn’t true.

Let’s unpack this properly.

Email didn’t show up one fine day

Like most tech revolutions, email wasn’t one eureka moment. It was more like a series of “tiny but important” steps across decades. Different people, different problems, different hacks that added up to what we now casually call “email.”

Back in 1965, nerds at MIT were already leaving each other messages on a big mainframe system. It wasn’t glamorous, but it worked. One user typed, another received. Kind of like sticking a Post-it note on someone’s monitor—except on a computer.

Enter 1971: The @ that changed the world

Now here’s the real turning point. Ray Tomlinson, an engineer working on ARPANET (think internet 1.0), figured out how to send a message from one computer to another. That’s the big deal. Not just typing on the same machine, but actually sending it over a network.

And here’s the kicker: he’s the guy who picked the “@” symbol. Yep, user@host. The thing you type dozens of times a day. That one decision basically branded email for eternity.

That’s why Tomlinson, not anyone else, is considered the real “inventor of email.”

By the late ’70s, email already looked like… email

In 1977, the tech community formalised how emails should look. Standards with To, From, CC, Subject were written down so that everyone played the same game.

So by the late ’70s, the skeleton of modern email was already out there:

• Networked messages ✅
• @ symbol ✅
• Familiar headers ✅

Sound familiar? Exactly.

So what about Shiva Ayyadurai?

Here’s where the story gets twisted.

In 1978, a teenage Shiva Ayyadurai built a program called EMAIL for a New Jersey medical school. It was basically a digital version of office mail systems—inbox, outbox, CC, BCC, the whole works. Cool project. Honestly, impressive for a 14-year-old.

He later got a copyright for the program’s code and manual. Which is nice, but copyright isn’t the same as inventing the entire concept of email. Copyright protects his version, not the idea.

When the Smithsonian accepted his papers in 2012, some people jumped to the conclusion that he must’ve invented email. The Smithsonian quickly clarified: nope, email existed before, this is just one story in a much bigger puzzle.

Why the myth refuses to die

People love simple stories. “One man invented X.” Much easier to digest than “hundreds of researchers gradually built X over decades.”

Throw in the fact that Ayyadurai literally named his program EMAIL, add a dash of Indian pride, stir it with social media’s love for viral myths—and boom. You’ve got a story that refuses to go away.

The truth, in one line

• Ray Tomlinson (1971) = network email + the @ symbol.
• Shiva Ayyadurai (1978–82) = built a program called EMAIL for local use.

Both contributions matter. But only one actually invented email as we know it.