Introduction To Email Concepts

Electronic mail (Email) is the greatest gift that computers have given mankind. Communicating with people all across the globe has never been as easy as it is through email. While computers are now used for many applications, majority of the computer users in the world use it for sending and receiving email. This article introduces various email concepts that are little understood.

Different Email Concepts

SMTP: SMTP is short for Simple Mail Transfer Protocol. This is a TCP/IP based protocol that is used to send and receive email. However SMTP is a bit limited in the sense that it can only be used to send email messages. In order to receive email, either POP or IMAP protocols are used.

POP: POP stands for Post Office Protocol and is a protocol that is used to receive email. The most recent version of POP is called POP3. POP3 is a client-server protocol which means that your email messages are stored on your server and need to be downloaded to your computer hard drive in order to be read. An email client such as Netscape, Outlook Express, AOL, or Eudora is used to download the emails onto your computer.

POP protocol can not be used to send email. Emails are sent using the SMTP protocol which transfers the emails to a handler that receives it. Email clients are then needed to receive and download the emails using POP, which can then be read.

Since POP3 is not a web based email service, you can access your emails only on the computer where they are downloaded. In order to overcome this limiting POP behaviour, IMAP was designed.

IMAP: This stands for Internet Message Access Protocol. This is an email service that enables you to access your email client and your POP email account from different locations and different computers. Another great feature of IMAP is that it allows you to download only the subject headers of your email instead of downloading the entire mail. Only if you want to read a particular email do you need to actually download it. Thus, if you’re away from your computer where your POP email account is created, you can still access your email through devices that have IMAP support.

Webmail: One of the most popular types of email is webmail. This is short for web based email. A webmail account is usually a free email account that is accessed and operated from a website. You need an internet connection to access webmail accounts, unlike POP accounts where internet connection is not mandatory.

Using your web browser, you have to visit a particular website and then enter your email ID and password. Your email account is then opened and you can create, send, and receive email. Popular web based email services include MSN Hotmail, Yahoomail, Gmail, Rediffmail etc.