Talk:Email client

This article is rated Start-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects:

Computing: Networking / Software Low‑importance This article is within the scope of WikiProject Computing, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of computers, computing, and information technology on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.ComputingWikipedia:WikiProject ComputingTemplate:WikiProject ComputingComputing articles Low This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale. This article is supported by Networking task force. This article is supported by WikiProject Software. Internet culture Low‑importance This article is within the scope of WikiProject Internet culture, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of internet culture on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Internet cultureWikipedia:WikiProject Internet cultureTemplate:WikiProject Internet cultureInternet culture articles Low This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale. WikiProject Internet culture To-do: edit history watch purge Here are some tasks awaiting attention: Article requests : View all requested internet culture articles Expand : Pick an article from here or here Photo : Category:Internet culture articles needing images Stubs : All stubs are located here Other : Category:Internet self-classification codes (!?); Try to get YouTube to FA; Tag all articles you find with {{WikiProject Internet culture}} See also Category:Internet culture articles needing attention

Excellent article! I was tired of trying to look for a windows open source email client but wikipedia tells me what I need to know.

Is gnus really the only email client for windows? There were a few others on sourceforge but the used php language and I couldnt get it working. --ShaunMacPherson 20:23, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I was also looking for a windows open source email client, and did a search at google as follows: "open source email client", choosed techsoup.org which provides some more information on several different email clients, and user ratings. Pegasus Mail, i have been using that for a couple of years now but it doesn't suit my needs anymore, it has some problems with opening certain jpg images. It crashes with messages with inline images. Therefore i decided to check out Mozilla's mail client, went to their site, read about it, and finally downloaded it. -- Tom-Timmy 01:40, 29 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I wouldn't describe MIME as a protocol. According to RFC 2045 its a "Format of Internet Message Bodies", hence a format. --Lanzm 14:52, 2004 Sep 25 (UTC)

I have difficulty in finding an information on backup, export and import of email files between/among the various email clients. Because I manage several mailing lists these are important issues, as well as the ability to extract/thread/make FAQs from the emails. I'd appreciate any input.

 --  dwf <mailto:dennisw.farrell@verizon.net>

This article needs a rewrite. (its also feels like it was lifted from an old textbook) Reading this you could be forgiven for thinking a client was purely a protocol layer. installed non unix systems might suggest this statement to be innacurate.

"..the various Microsoft Windows versions intended for home use never provided.." << bias, implied criticism.

"Since the various Microsoft Windows versions intended for home use never provided an MTA, most modern MUAs have to support protocols like POP3 and Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP).." <<< I dont think there is necessarily any connection between these two assertions.

Some examples needed. A broader context would be good.

R217.205.132.234 14:52, 31 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with the above comments, and have tagged the page for cleanup and requiring sources. I may be back to attempt to fix these issues myself later, but don't have time at the moment. JulesH 14:34, 8 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

"An e-mail client, also called a mail user agent (MUA), .." << perhaps this is true in the world of unix ?

And in the Microsoft world also, as a quick search for 'MUA' and 'mail user agent' in the Microsoft Knowledge Base reveals. This article for instance: Article ID: 814111 (last Reviewed: February 27, 2006)

The reason being this terminology is drawn from the Request For Comments documents that are used to collaboratively discuss and formalise internet standards. Try searching RFC's using the following site: http://www.rfc-editor.org

Not Unix-centric then, but certainly standards-centric.

Tonybrown100 13:39, 31 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I rewrote the article. It's now a stub, but I don't think it requires any cleanup now. Let me know what you think. -- Artagnon 08:45, 29 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I have some ideas for improvement that I'll go ahead and do when I have more time. One thing I'm not sure about is the section "Mail Concept" -- you describe this as being the most common arrangement, but I'm not convinced that use an external MTA application to send the message is all that common -- my guess is the most common setup is to use SMTP directly to pass the message to a remote MTA. The section should probably also acknowledge that systems using IMAP don't need an MDA at the client end, as delivery only occurs at the server in this case. JulesH 11:18, 29 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your input. We should probably describe the arrangement in a more generalised manner. You're right about external MTA not being necessary in most cases as most MUAs have them built in like mutt does. An external MTA isn't required. Nevertheless, the piece of code written into the MUA to push mail through to another MTA via SMTP is called an MTA. I'll make the 'MTA' sound less like an external requirement. I'll edit the article simultaneously in accordance with your suggestions when I have the time. --Artagnon 07:01, 31 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, I'm very confused as to the point of email clients. Will they assist in setting up a email list, i.e allow to send an email to a particular group as in yahoo or google groups. Will a client such as GNUS help me with this?

IMHO, distinguishing between client and server is fair. MUA and MTA. Yes, a client has a part that is able to submit a message: all clients do. However, such client MTA don't lookup the MX record, retry in case of failure, keep a mail queue and the like. Vice versa, an MTA also has some parts that can be used to read mail or send messages, although they are not quite user friendly.

MSA, AFAIK, refers to the submission protocol at port 587. I quote RFC 4496

A client (a mail user) starts with an email client program (MUA). The user sends email to an outgoing email server. In the email server, there is an MSA (mail submission agent) that is waiting to receive email from the user. The MSA uses an MTA within the same server to forward the user email to other domains. (Communication between the MUA and MSA may be via SMTP, SUBMIT, or something else such as MAPI).

As for MRA, I got "Your search - MRA site:rfc-editor.org - did not match any documents." ale 19:26, 7 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

From the history tab, I found out that the notion that an "MDA in conjunction with the MTA would transfer [messages] into a local mailbox" dates back to 16:53, 12 November 2005 by anonymous user 132.199.102.77. I think that is completely wrong. Conceptually, one can divide the inner working of an email client into parts that transfer, deliver, submit, and retrieve messages. However, that is not the common sense in which the acronyms MTA, MDA, MSA, and the Wikipedia-Mutt coined MRA are meant. Moreover, I know no actual email client that can use interchangeable plugins that carry out those jobs relying on the standardized interfaces. Thus, I think on my next visit I'll edit the article and relegate the possibility of such distinction in a separate paragraph, because mentioning them in the definition can be very confusing to an occasional reader. ale 18:50, 8 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I indent the removed text and comment on why it is deceptive.

In a POP3 mail setup, an MRA retrieves mail from a remote mailserver.

That is deceptive, as using an MRA is not the common way to read one's mail.

That is also inexact, since an MRA (e.g. fetchmail) can retrieve mail using POP2 and IMAP4 as well. In addition, the server is obviously a POP3 server, not an SMTP server like an MTA is usually meant to be: many ISPs have POP3 servers separated from their public MTAs.

An MDA delivers that mail to a local mailbox.

That is deceptive because local means w.r.t. the MDA, which runs on the server. Since the whole article is meant from the user point of view, the mailbox is not local for users who use their own machine, unless they run their own MRA rather than letting their MUAs access the POP3 server directly: a rather unusual setup.

Finally, an MUA connects to the local mailbox and reads mail.

That is not clear. The MUA connects to a file where the MRA has delivered the mail? It would seemingly make more sense if the MUA connects to the POP3 server. Why on the earth did the user run an MRA, then?

An MSA posts the message to a nearby MTA.

Correct. However, who posted the message to the MSA?

The MTA is then called to connect to a remote MTA to send mail. <ref>[1]</ref>

Correct, if call the MTA means submit a message. Here the procedural call is deceptively used to convey the wrong impression that the body of the MTA, rather than consisting of one or more programs running on a possibly different machine, can be linked within a client.

However, note that some/ several of these components may be built into the same application. For example, most MUAs act as an MSA to submit messages to the user's ISP's SMTP server.

RFC 4409, Message Submission for Mail, defines that "The process that accepts message submissions from MUAs is termed a Message Submission Agent (MSA)." The text I removed deceptively suggests that client and server roles are interchanged.

In an IMAP mail setup, an MDA is unnecessary as the mail stays on the mailserver and is directly read from there.[2]

The reference to RFC 1064 added by 172.142.234.243 on 22:09, 9 November 2007 is inappropriate: that document does not contain any of the terms delivery agent or MDA.

About MTA, MSA, and MDA, RFC 5068 notes that "These architectural components are often compressed, such as having the same software do MSA, MTA and MDA functions": not MUA. In facts, it is the MDA that knows what kind of storage (e.g. maildir or mbox) a user's mailbox uses, and it may deliver to that storage independently of the protocol (IMAP or POP3) that the user will deploy to retrieve the mail next time he or she connects. Some servers (e.g. Courier-MTA) provide both IMAP and POP3 services. Since mail must be delivered before it can be retrieved by any of those services, and they cannot know beforehand what protocol will be used, the delivery operation must take place in the same way.

To be pedantic, an MDA is unnecessary as the mail stays on the mailserver, but it is required whenever new mail arrives.

—Preceding unsigned comment added by Ale2006 (talk • contribs) 19:21, 15 November 2007

Re: An MDA delivers that mail to a local mailbox. -- That is deceptive because local means w.r.t. the MDA, which runs on the server. Since the whole article is meant from the user point of view, the mailbox is not local for users who use their own machine, unless they run their own MRA rather than letting their MUAs access the POP3 server directly: a rather unusual setup. -- Actually, it's descriptive of a typical setup on unix systems, where there is (often) an MDA [procmail] on the user's desktop machine (not the server), that delivers to a local file that the user-agent reads. However, I've never liked that section for other reasons - some of the wording is convoluted and confusing —Random832 20:13, 15 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, that's correct. The classical unix setting provides for users logging in on a machine where an MTA is running. And it is also deceptive that a regular client configuration installs exim on a debian notebook. (Because at requires it.) ale 09:00, 1 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It is true that many many users who bump across this article will be using an all-in-one email client. Confusing the users with terms like MRA, MUA and MTA is not a good idea, as already pointed out. For their purposes, distinguising between an MRA, MUA, MTA is not important. These are distinctions made in traditional unix and unix-like systems. This is not a historical note because, as already pointed out, a typical Debian system comes with exim installed by default. From the current revision of the article, no user can possibly understand where exim fits into the whole equation. They can never hope to understand what a true MUA such as mutt really does, much less set up mutt to send/receive his/her mail. From the point of view of Microsoft Windows users, this is possibly largely irrelevant as I know of no true MUA, MRA, MTA, MDA programs for the system.

Therefore the solution is not to eliminate all the painful explanations of how mail is really delivered, but rather put it in here or elsewhere so a new user doesn't get confused. For that, some research needs to be done to get solid sources backing up these acronyms (or whatever the correct ones might be) and some RFC articles specifying these standards. After that, we needs ideas to integrate this information somewhere so it's there but doesn't confuse a new user. My previous edit had glaring mistakes and didn't clarify enough what terms like "local" meant - I agree with that completely. Putting the old explanation back in is not an option. --Artagnon (talk) 16:54, 20 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on Email client. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20110512165437/http://www.ir.bbn.com/~craig/email.pdf to http://www.ir.bbn.com/~craig/email.pdf

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 5 June 2024).

• If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
• If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 03:08, 20 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The article needs to clearly define and specify the server component to which a mail client connects. On outgoing mail, the MUA connects with the MSA, which in turn transfers the outgoing message to the MTA. When retrieving incoming mail, the MSU connects to what? Is it the MDA, which stored the incoming mail in the mailboxes? Or is it the MTA which might also have stored the mail in the mailboxes? The reader is left to wonder about the way the various server components tie together, and other articles are little to no help at all. --KitchM (talk) 15:56, 4 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Are those actual questions, or just demonstrating the lack of clarity in the article? If you've got a fix in mind, feel free to implement it. — AfroThundr ^{(u · t · c)} 02:08, 5 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Does anyone have anything to object to inserting a list of common mailprogrammes? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.147.167.225 (talk) 14:47, 21 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

There is a list of clients in Comparison of email clients. Also taker a look at Offline reader. There is some overlap between mail clients and news clients, e.g., MR2/ICE is both. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 17:44, 21 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The User-Agent header field is for news. It is not, as the article claims, mentioned in RFC 2076, although Mail-System-Version:, Mailer:, Originating-Client: and X-Mailer are. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 02:26, 27 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]