Are greetings and salutations redundant in an e-mail?

Some sensitivity to age and formality is needed to answer this question. A formal note does not change in structure because it's being sent via email. There's nothing special or magical about email that gives one permission to be forward, rude, or insulting.

When writing to older persons, persons in authority, superiors, et al, I recommend a salutation and a complimentary close. These are not "wastes of time" by any means - they serve very specific functions if you are skilled in their use. Both the opening and the close allow you to frame your relationship with the recipient. For example:

Melissa:

Hi Melissa:

Dear Melissa:

These all have a different feel and express a different kind of tone. Paired with the proper close, you have no need for silly emoticons and winkies and such.

However, younger people will find these things to be quite strange and confusing. In sending email to anyone 25 and younger, I'd recommend being extremely curt and you might even be pushing the envelope by using punctuation.

As the others have said, this depends very much on the people you are communicating with. I'd say, better safe than sorry: as a rule, it is best to include greetings and a closing line with your name in your e-mails, unless you're absolutely sure the recipient will not appreciate them. In informal e-mails to friends, just Hi + Recipient and Sender is enough:

Hi John-John,

content

Tom-Tom

It takes an infinitesimal amount of time, and it looks neater. You show the other person that you appreciate his sense of style enough to make a small effort. The same applies to rereading your e-mail to check for errors: I nearly always do that, though some errors always slip through regardless. Oh, and using correct grammar, style, and punctuation is always a good idea, as it makes your e-mail easier and more pleasant to read.

I'm talking about the first e-mail in a conversation here: if you send a short reply to an informal e-mail after a short interval of time, say after a day or two, the initial greetings in the first message of the "conversation" should still count.

Most of my friends, my colleagues, and I, who are mostly in our twenties, always use greetings and closing lines in regular e-mails, especially if they are group e-mails, requests, or longer e-mails. Even so, if I omitted greeting or closing line, no eyebrows would be raised; but it would be assumed that I was writing in haste. And a quick reply to someone you see often will usually not have greetings or closing lines. But a one-line e-mail out of nowhere with a request comes across as a little rude to me.

If I were about to date someone and I got an e-mail with stupid errors in it and bad style, this would tell me something about the other person's sense of style, even though the errors themselves are not important. Call me a snob—but it would be a slight turn-off, requiring compensation. Similarly I will have slightly more faith in someone's competence in business and academia if he is able to communicate with impeccable style and punctilio. It probably won't be a deal-breaker, but every small effort helps. That said, a lack of greetings and closing lines is absolutely not on the same scale as errors in grammar or punctuation; in informal e-mails, it isn't very important. But why not do it? It takes only a second or two.

In my experience, email can be used in one of two ways:

1. Sending letters in electronic form.
2. Sending asynchronous, quick communications - similar to Skype or text messaging.

If you're sending a letter in electronic form - then as another answer stated, it should be no different from a letter you would write and send through snail mail. However if you're sending an email that took you 1 minute to write and it's part of a string of short communications between you and the others you are mailing to, then drop the formalities - it's all about getting your point efficiently across to the other people. In the latter case I usually drop the "Dear Dr. Whoosiwhatsits III" and I just have my say and then sign it with my initials - JB

JB

This is cultural, either large scale or very small scale. Which is to say, it depends. Your mom might be offended if you don't have a salutation specific to her. Your boss may wonder who it is from. Your coworker might be offended by any kind of salutation.

I find that a salutation is useful in its redundancy; if it's missing at the end, my eye has to travel all over the page before I find the 'from' address (which may need to be interpreted before I realize exactly who sent it).

So the answer is, depending on the context, do what everybody else does, or people will think you are weird.

I personally find greetings empty (except it proves that they know my name), but I like a nominal salutation (literally, just the name) so that I know how to address them in the future (either in email or in person). I find "Cheers,", "Regards", whatever, also empty bacause I want to read them literally, and there's very little there that -is- literal.

@JoJo: The problem with your question is that you make an unfair, possibly dangerous assumption:

The email header already includes the to and from.

The email header also includes the carbon copy field (CC) and may contain multiple "to" addressees.

The "from" field is not guaranteed to be accurate, especially when using personal accounts. The "from" field may include a nickname, pen name, business name, partial name, unfamiliar form of the name, etc. People are not always sure what name appears in the "from" field as that name is often configured once and then never seen again.

The "from" field also does not contain any alternate contact forms.

The recipient should not be confused by who the email is directed at (himself) and who it's coming from if the greeting and salutation are missing.

In larger organizations, it is common practice to copy managers on task-related e-mails. Especially with the CC field. This isn't done purely for show, it's also important for tracking and information sharing.

When I include two or more people on an e-mail it make perfect sense to address the target of that e-mail. If I send an e-mail to two co-workers and a manager, I may want only one worker to reply while everyone is involved.

Compare the following two:

#1:

from: me
to: boss, expert, peer
subject: a question
message: Hello expert;...

#2:

from: me
to: boss, expert, peer
subject: a question
message: Hello team;...

These are clearly different e-mails, as indicated by the first line of the message.

Are greetings and salutations redundant in an e-mail?

I think the above examples prove quite clearly that they are not redundant.