Maildrop
Encyclopedia
maildrop is a Mail delivery agent
used by the Courier Mail Server
. The maildrop MDA also includes filtering functionality.
maildrop receives mail via stdin and delivers in both Maildir
and mbox
formats.
maildrop has been suggested as an alternative to the unmaintained procmail
MDA.
maildrop is written in C++ however it uses resources more efficiently than procmail (written in C) by saving large messages to a temporary file rather than reading them into memory. If the input to maildrop is a file then a temporary file is not used.
Mail delivery agent
A mail delivery agent or message delivery agent is a computer software component that is responsible for the delivery of e-mail messages to a local recipient's mailbox...
used by the Courier Mail Server
Courier Mail Server
The Courier mail server is a mail transfer agent server that provides ESMTP, IMAP, POP3, SMAP, webmail, and mailing list services with individual components. It is best known for its IMAP server component....
. The maildrop MDA also includes filtering functionality.
maildrop receives mail via stdin and delivers in both Maildir
Maildir
The Maildir e-mail format is a common way of storing e-mail messages, where each message is kept in a separate file with a unique name, and each folder is a directory...
and mbox
Mbox
mbox is a generic term for a family of related file formats used for holding collections of electronic mail messages. All messages in an mbox mailbox are concatenated and stored as plain text in a single file...
formats.
maildrop has been suggested as an alternative to the unmaintained procmail
Procmail
procmail is a mail delivery agent capable of sorting incoming mail into various directories and filtering out spam messages. Procmail is widely used on Unix-based systems and stable, but no longer maintained; users who wish a maintained program are advised to use an alternative MDA, such as...
MDA.
Features
maildrop can optionally read filtering configuration from a file to determine whether the message is delivered to an alternate mailbox or forwarded. The structured filtering language is robust enough to allow maildrop to work with virtual mailboxes. If the filtering configuration contains syntax errors maildrop does not deliver the message but the message is not lost.maildrop is written in C++ however it uses resources more efficiently than procmail (written in C) by saving large messages to a temporary file rather than reading them into memory. If the input to maildrop is a file then a temporary file is not used.