--- title: AOL You've Got Mail Guy Elwood Edwards Lives And Works In Cleveland description: The voice of AOL lives and works in Cleveland canonical: https://time.com/36896/aol-youve-got-mail-guy/ author: Samantha Grossman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-03-25T14:29:54.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:08:08.240Z og:title: Meet the Guy Behind the Iconic "You’ve Got Mail" Voice og:description: The voice of AOL lives and works in Cleveland og:url: https://time.com/36896/aol-youve-got-mail-guy/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Meet the Guy Behind the Iconic "You’ve Got Mail" Voice twitter:description: The voice of AOL lives and works in Cleveland twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Meet the Guy Behind the Iconic "You’ve Got Mail" Voice by [Samantha Grossman](/author/samantha-grossman/) ## Samantha Grossman Mar 25, 2014 2:29 PM CUT by [Samantha Grossman](/author/samantha-grossman/) ## Samantha Grossman Mar 25, 2014 2:29 PM CUT Ever wondered if there was an actual human being behind AOL’s iconic “You’ve Got Mail” recording? Well, there is! A real, living, breathing human being named Elwood Edwards recorded that classic phrase—along with “Welcome” and “File’s done!” and “Goodbye.” Comedian Jim Breuer tracked Edwards down at Cleveland’s WKYC Channel 3, where he works as an editor and graphics supervisor. Breuer graciously recorded a short video so we could all hear Edward’s story—and hear him utter that simple phrase that [altered the course of pop culture](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0128853/ "undefined") forever. (h/t [The AV Club](http://www.avclub.com/article/youve-got-mail-guy-alive-and-well-and-living-cleve-202577 "undefined")) ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/36896/aol-youve-got-mail-guy/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/36896/aol-youve-got-mail-guy/"},"headline":"Meet the Guy Behind the Iconic \"You’ve Got Mail\" Voice","datePublished":"2014-03-25T14:29:54.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:08:08.240Z","description":"The voice of AOL lives and works in Cleveland","url":"https://time.com/36896/aol-youve-got-mail-guy/","keywords":["Newsfeed","Internet","AOL"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Samantha Grossman","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/samantha-grossman/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/36896/aol-youve-got-mail-guy/","name":"Meet the Guy Behind the Iconic \"You’ve Got Mail\" Voice"}}]}] ```