What Is a Mail Server? A Simple Explanation

Every email you send or receive passes through a mail server - but what is one, exactly? Here's a simple explanation of what mail servers do and the pieces involved.

The post office analogy

Think of a mail server as a digital post office. It accepts letters (your outgoing mail), sorts and routes them to the right destination, and holds incoming letters in your box until you collect them. When you hit send, you're handing your message to this post office to deliver.

The two jobs: sending and receiving

Mail servers do two broad things:

• Sending (outgoing) - handled by SMTP, the protocol that moves mail between servers. See what is SMTP explained.
• Receiving and storing (incoming) - handled by IMAP or POP, which let your app read the mail the server holds for you. See IMAP vs POP: which should you use.

How mail finds the right server

When someone emails you@yourcompany.com, the sender's server looks up your domain's MX records to find which mail server receives your mail. See what are MX records.

What a good mail server also does

A modern mail server isn't just storage and routing. It also:

• Authenticates your mail with SPF, DKIM and DMARC, see SPF, DKIM and DMARC explained
• Filters spam, phishing and viruses before they reach you, see how to stop spam and phishing in business email
• Encrypts connections and stored mail, see email encryption explained
• Backs up your data, see daily backups and email recovery

Do you need to run your own?

Running a mail server well - keeping it secure, patched and with a clean sending reputation - is a serious ongoing job. For almost every business, hosted email is the better choice: you get all the benefits with none of the maintenance. See email hosting vs web hosting.

Mail servers, managed for you

DigiCloudMail runs well-managed, secure mail servers so you get reliable, authenticated email on your own domain - without ever touching server administration.

Want professional email without the servers? Contact us.