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how web-based email works?

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by mikeindo

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simply put, how does web-based email work? i mean, since web-based email seems to be little more than HTTP files back and forth, at what point does SMTP come into the picture?

5 replies

by acattr

All mail servers use SMTP to send and recieve emails. The HTTP is just a front end, a GUI for the client to send and recieve thier emails via SMTP.

by sfertic

I use Exchange OWA for web-based email and basically how it works is: Your browser uses HTTP to display output from the .asp pages from a server running IIS. The browser acts as a MAPI client to connect to your mailbox and retrieve your email (POP3) and uses STMP to send the mail to an SMTP host (specified in DNS in the LAN). SMTP comes into the picture only when you click Send and uses Exchange Server to send it out via its SMTP host.

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