How Does a Desktop Email System Work?

Desktop email works by separating the discrete functions that make up an email system. Different components of the system run on separate computers, each configured for optimal performance of its particular function.

The desktop email "client" (or program) runs on your desktop computer and communicates with various email "servers" that handle sending and receiving email and storing your folders. The client and the servers are linked together by the Internet.

Two Internet standards are used at the UW for email:

• The Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) governs how an email program sends messages
• The Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP) is responsible for the rules for how an email program accesses and manages incoming and saved-message folders on a mail server

Desktop email at the UW relies on these Internet standards to ensure that all the pieces of the system can communicate with each other. Visit the UW-sponsored IMAP Information Center Web site at www.washington.edu/imap/ for more information about this protocol and for additional related links.