SMTP Simple Mail Transport Protocol

SMTP is a relatively simple, text-based protocol, where one or more recipients of a message are specified (and in most cases verified to exist) and then the message text is transferred. It is quite easy to test a SMTP server using the telnet program. SMTP uses TCP port 25. To determine the SMTP server for a given domain name, the MX (Mail eXchange) DNS record is used.

Full definition of SMTP at Wikipedia

SMTP is used to send your Email. Simple Mail Transport Protocol is often confused with POP3, which retrieves your Email from the server. Both of these need to be configured properly in your Email client (Such as Outlook Express or Outlook) in order to send and retrieve your Email from your ISP.

We often get asked "How do I configure my Email client?"

SMTP is used to send your mail, and a protocol called POP3 is used to retrieve Email. When configuring a mail client such as Outlook or Outlook Express, you will set need this information from your ISP. Normally, the POP3 and SMTP will be something like "mail.aol.com."

So no matter what your ISP, you can configure any mail client to retrieve and send your Email with a little configuration.

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