Simple Mail Access Protocol
Encyclopedia
The Simple Mail Access Protocol (SMAP) is an application layer
Internet
protocol for accessing e-mail
stored on a server
. It was introduced as part of the Courier
suite
, with the goal of creating a simpler and more capable alternative to IMAP
.
Notable features of SMAP:
, SMAP is still considered experimental, and is only supported by the Courier server
and Cone
client
.
Application layer
The Internet protocol suite and the Open Systems Interconnection model of computer networking each specify a group of protocols and methods identified by the name application layer....
Internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
protocol for accessing e-mail
E-mail
Electronic mail, commonly known as email or e-mail, is a method of exchanging digital messages from an author to one or more recipients. Modern email operates across the Internet or other computer networks. Some early email systems required that the author and the recipient both be online at the...
stored on a server
Server (computing)
In the context of client-server architecture, a server is a computer program running to serve the requests of other programs, the "clients". Thus, the "server" performs some computational task on behalf of "clients"...
. It was introduced as part of the Courier
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....
suite
Software suite
A software suite or application suite is a collection of computer programs, usually application software and programming software of related functionality, often sharing a more-or-less common user interface and some ability to smoothly exchange data with each other.Sometimes software makers...
, with the goal of creating a simpler and more capable alternative to IMAP
Internet Message Access Protocol
Internet message access protocol is one of the two most prevalent Internet standard protocols for e-mail retrieval, the other being the Post Office Protocol...
.
Notable features of SMAP:
- MIMEMIMEMultipurpose Internet Mail Extensions is an Internet standard that extends the format of email to support:* Text in character sets other than ASCII* Non-text attachments* Message bodies with multiple parts...
attachmentsE-mail attachmentAn email attachment is a computer file sent along with an email message. One or more files can be attached to any email message, and be sent along with it to the recipient. This is typically used as a simple method to share documents and images...
can be transmitted in their raw, decoded form. This allows large base64Base64Base64 is a group of similar encoding schemes that represent binary data in an ASCII string format by translating it into a radix-64 representation...
-encoded attachments to be transmitted without the 4:3 inflation that base64 encoding usually incurs. - Support for sending outgoing e-mails through the SMAP connection, instead of using a separate SMTP connection to the server. An outgoing message only needs to be transmitted once to send it, and save a copy to a server-side folder.
- UnicodeUnicodeUnicode is a computing industry standard for the consistent encoding, representation and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems...
folder names, with native support for hierarchy. - SMAP clients and servers can fall back to IMAP if the peer does not support SMAP.
, SMAP is still considered experimental, and is only supported by the Courier 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....
and Cone
Cone (software)
Cone is a text-based e-mail client and news client for Unix-like operating systems. It is developed by the Courier Mail Server developers. Its name stands for "console newsreader and emailer"....
client
E-mail client
An email client, email reader, or more formally mail user agent , is a computer program used to manage a user's email.The term can refer to any system capable of accessing the user's email mailbox, regardless of it being a mail user agent, a relaying server, or a human typing on a terminal...
.
See also
- POP4, another attempt at creating a "simpler IMAP", by extending POP3Post Office ProtocolIn computing, the Post Office Protocol is an application-layer Internet standard protocol used by local e-mail clients to retrieve e-mail from a remote server over a TCP/IP connection. POP and IMAP are the two most prevalent Internet standard protocols for e-mail retrieval. Virtually all modern...