The Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) is an Internet standard communication protocol for electronic mail transmission. Mail servers and other message transfer agents use SMTP to send and receive mail messages. User-level email clients typically use SMTP only for sending messages to a mail server for relaying, and typically submit outgoing email to the mail server on port 587 or 465 per RFC 8314. For retrieving messages, IMAP is standard, but proprietary servers also often implement proprietary protocols, e.g., Exchange ActiveSync.
A chain letter is a message that attempts to convince the recipient to make a number of copies and pass them on to a certain number of recipients. The "chain" is an exponentially growing pyramid that cannot be sustained indefinitely.
The mail or post is a system for physically transporting postcards, letters, and parcels. A postal service can be private or public, though many governments place restrictions on private systems. Since the mid-19th century, national postal systems have generally been established as a government monopoly, with a fee on the article prepaid. Proof of payment is usually in the form of an adhesive postage stamp, but a postage meter is also used for bulk mailing.
Mail is an email client included by Apple Inc. with its operating systems macOS, iOS, iPadOS, watchOS, and visionOS. Mail grew out of NeXTMail, which was originally developed by NeXT as part of its NeXTSTEP operating system, after Apple's acquisition of NeXT in 1997.
Various anti-spam techniques are used to prevent email spam.
A Joe job is a spamming technique that sends out unsolicited e-mails using spoofed sender data. Early Joe jobs aimed at tarnishing the reputation of the apparent sender or inducing the recipients to take action against them, but they are now typically used by commercial spammers to conceal the true origin of their messages and to trick recipients into opening emails apparently coming from a trusted source.
A bounce message or just "bounce" is an automated message from an email system, informing the sender of a previous message that the message has not been delivered. The original message is said to have "bounced".
A greeting card is a piece of card stock, usually with an illustration or photo, made of high quality paper featuring an expression of friendship or other sentiment. Although greeting cards are usually given on special occasions such as birthdays, Christmas or other holidays, such as Halloween, they are also sent to convey thanks or express other feelings.
In email, a return receipt is an acknowledgment by the recipient's email client to the sender of receipt of an email message. What acknowledgment, if any, is sent by the recipient to the sender is dependent on the email software of the recipient.
Email tracking or email tracker is a method for monitoring whether the email message is read by the intended recipient. Most tracking technologies use some form of digitally time-stamped record to reveal the exact time and date when an email is received or opened, as well as the IP address of the recipient.
Push email is an email system that provides an always-on capability, in which when new email arrives at the mail delivery agent (MDA), it is immediately, actively transferred (pushed) by the MDA to the mail user agent (MUA), also called the email client, so that the end-user can see incoming email immediately. This is in contrast with systems that check for new incoming mail every so often, on a schedule. Email clients include smartphones and, less strictly, IMAP personal computer mail applications.
Email spoofing is the creation of email messages with a forged sender address. The term applies to email purporting to be from an address which is not actually the sender's; mail sent in reply to that address may bounce or be delivered to an unrelated party whose identity has been faked. Disposable email address or "masked" email is a different topic, providing a masked email address that is not the user's normal address, which is not disclosed, but forwards mail sent to it to the user's real address.
A challenge–response system is a type of that automatically sends a reply with a challenge to the (alleged) sender of an incoming e-mail. It was originally designed in 1997 by Stan Weatherby, and was called Email Verification. In this reply, the purported sender is asked to perform some action to assure delivery of the original message, which would otherwise not be delivered. The action to perform typically takes relatively little effort to do once, but great effort to perform in large numbers. This effectively filters out spammers. Challenge–response systems only need to send challenges to unknown senders. Senders that have previously performed the challenging action, or who have previously been sent e-mail(s) to, would be automatically receive a challenge.
Windows Live Mail is a discontinued freeware email client from Microsoft. It was the successor to Windows Mail in Windows Vista, which was the successor to Outlook Express in Windows XP and Windows 98. Windows Live Mail is designed to run on Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2, but is also compatible with Windows 8 and Windows 10, even though Microsoft bundles a new email client, named Windows Mail, with the latter. In addition to email, Windows Live Mail also features a calendar, an RSS feed reader, and a Usenet newsreader.
Outlook.com, formerly Hotmail, is a free personal email service offered by Microsoft. This includes a webmail interface featuring mail, calendaring, contacts, and tasks services. Outlook can also be accessed via email clients using the IMAP or POP protocols.
The Gmail interface makes Gmail unique amongst webmail systems for several reasons. Most evident to users are its search-oriented features and means of managing e-mail in a "conversation view" that is similar to an Internet forum.
TouchNote is a mobile app for smartphones, tablets and website for sending printed, personalized postcards, greeting cards, other photo products as well as gifts.
EmailTray is a lightweight email client for the Microsoft Windows operating system. EmailTray was developed by Internet Promotion Agency S.A., a software development d.
Graymail is solicited bulk email messages that don't fit the definition of email spam. Recipient interest in this type of mailing tends to diminish over time, increasing the likelihood that recipients will report graymail as spam. In some cases, graymail can account for up to 82 percent of the average user's email inbox. Graymail was described in 2007 and 2008 by researchers at Microsoft Research looking to improve spam filtering as “messages that could reasonably be considered either spam or good ” hence the name “graymail” was chosen to signify the subjective nature of the classification. A 2008 paper presented at the Fifth annual Conference on Email and Anti-Spam (CEAS) describes graymail as "messages that some users value and others prefer to block". In 2011 a report by The Radicati Group referred to graymail as "newsletters or notifications that a user may have signed up for at one time but no longer wants to receive".
MOSST Payments is a Ukrainian payment system that provides a money transfer system using debit and credit cards as well a system for accepting cards and a QR code payment system. Both banks and non-bank financial institutions participants in the payment system.
