

Instead, IMAP will be used for receiving messages. Since IMAP deals with message retrieval, you will not be able to use the IMAP protocol to send email. Simply put, IMAP (Internet Access Message Protocol) is an email protocol that deals with managing and retrieving email messages from the receiving server. If SMTP is all about sending, then: What is IMAP?

So, if you’re looking to enable email sending within your application, then you’ll want to go ahead with using SMTP over IMAP.

The key thing to keep in mind when thinking about whether to use SMTP or IMAP, is that SMTP is about sending email. A sender will use an SMTP server to carry out the process of transmitting an email message. With SMTP you are sending, relaying, or forwarding messages from a mail client (like Microsoft Outlook) to a receiving email server. SMTP stands for Simple Mail Transfer Protocol and it’s the industry standard protocol for email sending. That means IMAP talks to both the client and server to get emails, and SMTP talks only to servers to send emails. IMAP is for the retrieval of emails and SMTP is for the sending of emails. What is the difference between IMAP and SMTP?
