How long email accounts have been around?

Answer 1

Since 1970s

In the early 1970's, Ray Tomlinson was working on a small team developing the TENEX operating system, with local email programs called SNDMSG and READMAIL. In late 1971, Tomlinson developed the first ARPANET email application when he updated SNDMSG by adding a program called CPYNET capable of copying files over the network, and informed his colleagues by sending them an email using the new program with instructions on how to use it.

To extend the addressing to the network, Tomlinson chose the "commercial at" symbol to combine the user and host names, providing the naturally meaningful notation "user@host" that is the standard for email addressing today. These early programs had simple functionality and were command line driven, but established the basic transactional model that still defines the technology -- email gets sent to someone's mailbox.

Answer 2

Email accounts, as you know them, have been around since the early 90's when the internet became public access. Before then the only people using the internet was the military and computer scientists.