SMTP

The Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) is an Internet standard outlined by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) that can be used for sending email messages. Recently, all Internet providers use this protocol for sending email.

If you use SMTP, there should be an e-mail client sending the messages and the mail server receiving them. Your email program utilizes this protocol and acts as an SMTP client to distribute email messages to recipients. In most cases, you can configure and use any email client the same way you do with your regular email clients like Microsoft Outlook, for instance. You can specify the SMTP server that your Internet provider gave you. When the SMTP Client sends email messages, it connects to the SMTP server you have specified, and communicates with it using the SMTP protocol.