What is SMTP?
SMTP is an abbreviation for Simple Mail Transfer Protocol. You have heard about emails. The protocol that is used to send an email is known as SMTP. It is a protocol that consists of a particular set of communicational guidelines. These guidelines are followed to send mail or a message using an application. SMTP is only limited to sending emails to other users or over a network. That message must consist of text, images, graphics, audio, video, and many other elements. This protocol is used to transmit your message to other users. It is mostly used with some of the other protocols which are POP and IMAP. All these three protocols act as supportive elements of SMTP.
POP acts as a primary protocol when you are communicating with someone using email. This protocol enables your email software to establish connectivity through email Servers. This process makes your male downloadable on the other user’s screen. With POP another protocol is used with SMTP which is IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol). This protocol, according to its name, is used to open and access the email on your computer screen.
Don’t worry about it. In this article, we are going to provide you with information about mail servers. This server supports all these three protocols mentioned above. This server is responsible for making email communication a faster process. We are going to discuss the email server or SMTP Server in this article.
What is SMTP Server
SMTP or email server consists of a set of addresses that belong to different receivers. One or multiple addresses are selected by the sender to send an email. All this process is done using a particular address that has a particular format. The format of that address is just like [email protected]. If the address is not in such format then the email does not be sent to the receiver.
SMTP servers can only send emails to verified accounts that are existing. After entering the address SMTP servers verify the details of the email address. All this is done just to verify the validity of the address. This process safeguards all the emails and enables them to be sent only to trusted accounts. SMTP server plays an important role just in verifying the user accounts and sending emails to different users.
There Are Two Different Types of SMTP Servers that Are Described Below:
- Regular SMTP Server: These servers are mostly used to send emails regularly. These servers are used by all the users provided by the email service providers like Gmail. It is considered the personal email service that is used by almost every user worldwide.
- Dedicated SMTP Server: These are the servers that are dedicated to a particular company or organization. Some of the biggest companies have dedicated servers. These servers are capable of sending emails in bulk within an organization.
Process Followed by SMTP Server
- Firstly the particular user uses an email software to compose an email. This email consists of the address of the receiver. Not only does the address also consist of different types of content like pictures, text, audio, video, etc. This email can be sent for both official and unofficial communication.
- Secondly, after entering all the details the user sends the mail to their desired receivers. The mail is now transmitted using port 25. This power is used to establish connectivity using the internet connection. The mail is now verified by the SMTP server. Verification is done of all the details that the user has entered in the email. This is done to check whether the mail is fulfilling all the requirements of the SMTP server or not. If not then the server generates the error message to the user who has sent the mail. If all the conditions are fulfilled then it will further transmit the email.
- The SMTP server also checks whether the receiver is connected to the same server or not. If the receiver is connected with the same server then the SMTP server will deliver the email immediately to that receiver. If not then the SMTP server directly sends this email to that server to which the sender is connected. This process takes some time but the mail delivery will be completed. If everything goes up to the mark then the mail will be delivered to the receiver.
- Now there is another case when the recipient’s server is facing some issues or is down at that time. Don’t worry, the SMTP server directly sent the email to another server that is nearby the receiver. This server is named the backup server. If both the servers are busy then the email is stored in a queue or the delivery is cancelled. Both these servers generate an error message to the user and ask them to resend the email after some time.
- If all of these issues don’t arise the mail will be delivered successfully. After which all the tasks are completed using the POP protocol. This protocol is a set of rules that are used to pick up that email from the receiver’s server and send the mail to the inbox of the receiver. When the receiver receives the email then the IMAP protocol is used to read the email and download all the attachments that are sent by the sender.
Conclusion
The SMTP protocol is responsible for making you send the email to other recipients. For performing such tasks SMTP used a server to transmit a message from one system to another. There are 2 different types of SMTP servers. One is a regular server and another is dedicated. A regular server is considered a free SMTP server for all its users. These free SMTP servers allow users to send emails freely to their desired receivers. We have discussed SMTP servers in this article and concluded that the servers are highly necessary for SMTP to transmit emails. You can choose any of the above-mentioned servers as per your requirements.
