Email Terms Explained

Email Addresses:

An e-mail address identifies a location to which e-mail messages can be delivered. An e-mail address looks like, for example, msmith@example.co.uk and is usually read as "msmith at example dot com.

Spam (Junk Mail)

Unwanted email messages sent across the Internet usually to a large 'bulk' of recipients in systematic mass mailings. Messages usually advertise goods or services from random websites, which customers have not provided permission to receive marketing messages from. Often, email addresses of recipients of spam are 'harvested' (or collected) by software designed to capture email addresses from the wider internet and are then stored on databases which are used to send further mailings. This can be a major nuisance for users of email services, unless customers are properly protected by anti-spam or bulk folder filtering tools.

Attachments:

When you send an email you also have the option of sending a file attachment such as a text document (Word or Excel), photographs (Photo-Shop files, gifs, and jpegs), Sound files (MP3s) or Video clips (Windows Media Player, Real Media Player). Depending on which Service level you choose there will be a limit on the size of attachments you can send and receive.

Storage Limit:

All mail boxes usually have a storage limit. The storage limit will usually help a customer decide which service level to take. This storage limit will be spread across your inbox, sent items and folders. The more storage you require the better the email solution you require. Obviously more storage space will allow you to keep your emails, meaning you'll rarely need to delete any. This would normally benefit someone who may use email regularly and who may receive large file attachments such as photographs, video clips and sound files.

Email Server:

An email Server is a mail transfer agent (MTA), or system of MTAs, used to route email and act as a mail server, by storing email and supporting client access (MUA) using Post Office Protocol (POP), Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP) or other protocols.

Think of an email server like a post office. It's a computer where all of your emails are stored for local users. It receives incoming emails from local users and remote senders, as well as forwards outgoing email for delivery.

The person responsible for the maintenance of an email server is called the postmaster. The postmaster can edit users and monitor system activity.

Web Mail:

This is a web-based application that allows you to read and write your email using a web browser. Email is stored on the web rather than downloaded to your computer.

Web Mail has features such as mailboxes, address books etc; the normal features you would expect when dealing with emails.

POP3 and IMAP:

IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol) is a standard protocol for accessing e-mail from your local server. IMAP is a client/server protocol in which e-mail is received and held for you by your Internet server. You (or your e-mail client) can view just the heading and the sender of the letter and then decide whether to download the mail. You can also create and manipulate multiple folders or mailboxes on the server, delete messages, or search for certain parts or an entire note. IMAP requires continual access to the server during the time that you are working with your mail.

A less sophisticated protocol is Post Office Protocol 3 (POP3). With POP3, your mail is saved for you in a single mailbox on the server. When you read your mail, all of it is immediately downloaded to your computer and, except when previously arranged, no longer maintained on the server.

IMAP can be thought of as a remote file server. POP3 can be thought of as a "store-and-forward" service.

POP3 and IMAP deal with the receiving of e-mail from your local server and are not to be confused with Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP), a protocol used for exchanging e-mail between points on the Internet. Typically, SMTP is used for sending only and POP3 or IMAP are used to read e-mail.

Forwarder:

Forwarder is a service that allows your emails to automatically be sent (forwarded) from one or more email addresses to a different email address (or even to several email addresses).

Auto-responders:

An ‘Auto-responder’ is an automatic reply to any correspondence sent to an email address.

For example - If you are going on holiday for 2 weeks and will not be in the office, you can switch on your email auto-responder which in turn will deliver a reply to all incoming mail informing them of your holiday.

"I am currently out of the office at the moment. I'll be back on the 3rd of September"

This means, when anyone sends you an email they'll get an automatic reply with the message above.

Auto-responder is also a good way of telling your customers that the email they've just sent has been received and you will respond on your return.

The uses of auto-responders are endless!

Email Alias:

An Email alias is simply a forwarding e-mail address. Each e-mail alias you create simply forwards email on to any other email address that you specify.

Email aliases are often used to create handy replacements for long or difficult-to-remember email addresses. They can also be used to create generic email addresses such as webmaster@yourcompany.co.uk and info@yourcompany.co.uk

For example, say you want to create a webmaster email alias on the yourcompany.co.uk Virtual Private Servers that automatically and immediately forwards to your local ISP e-mail account, you@your-isp.co.uk; on the yourcompany.co.uk Virtual Private Servers, you would create an email alias like this:

webmaster:you@your-isp.com

It is that easy! And you can create as many e-mail aliases as you like on your VPS, there's no limit!

FormMail:

FormMail automatically sends information gathered from a fill-in-the-blanks form on a webpage via email to the email address specified by the site user.