No one can deny the importance of emails.

They are the primary source of communication.

In this article, you will get some fantastic and informative knowledge about email servers.

You will witness how the incoming mail server Gmail and Google outgoing mail server perform their services.

You will be amazed to know the mechanism behind sending and receiving email.

What is the Incoming Mail Server for Gmail?

These are:

1. POP
2. IMAP

Let us first have a look at the history of email and from where it came.

History of Email:

• They were invented in 1972.
• After the invention of timesharing computers, researchers worked for finding ways to exchange texts.
• They also intended to do something for real-time chats.
• Ray Tomlinson was the man who introduced the first ever email application.

Sending and Receiving Emails:

In this era of technology, sending and receiving malls is quite common as it is our need and the demand for this age of technology.

Some of the benefits of emails are:

• You can easily keep a record of what you sent and received.
• It is easily accessible. You can use your email from anywhere.
• It is one of the fastest and preferred ways of communication for professional purposes.

We send many emails every day, even we don’t know how many emails we receive and send daily, but still we aren’t aware of the mechanism behind it.

Many people don’t know how the emails are sent and received and what is the role of servers behind it.

Every email you compose and send passes through servers.

Although it takes very less time to send an email from one PC to another even less than a blink of the eye behind the scenes much work categorized that we don’t know.

As Gmail is the most common email account used by people, so I will discuss the type and work with email servers considering Gmail.

Google Email Server:

They provide best services to their clients of sending and receiving emails. They are categorized into:

• Google incoming email IMAP and POP
•  Google outgoing mail SMTP

IMAP:

• IMAP stands for Internet Message answer protocol.
• It is used for viewing emails from other browsers.
• Many servers allow Webmail, and it is also one of kind of such server.
• Messages are not deleted after you view them.
• They are stored, and you can quickly get access to them from any other browser.
• Before going into Gmail settings, you must have a Gmail account or must know how to make one.

How to Setup Gmail Account?

Setting up an account on Gmail is quite easy.

If you don’t have a Gmail account then no need to worry.

Here is a guide on how to set up Gmail account.

1. In the search bar of your browser type www.gmail.com
2. Then click on create an account.
3. You will get the sign-up page.
4. Here you will have to provide some basic info. You will be asked for your name, gender, date of birth, etc
5. Tick the checkbox next to Google’s term and policy agreement.
6. Then you will get an option to set up settings for recovery. These are quite helpful regarding security
7. Click Done.

Incoming Mail Server Gmail IMAP Settings:

Gmail IMAP server address is:

                                imap.gmail.com

Its username is your Gmail’s address name, and password is your Gmail password that you chose when setting up your Gmail account or changed any other time from security settings of Gmail.

2. POP:

• POP stands for ‘Post Office Protocol.
• It has been serving since 1984.
• POP2 and POP3 have also been released.
• It allows its users to download emails from any remote server.
• Using this server, emails are downloaded for permanent storage.

You should prefer POP if you want to download from only one device and you have limited server storage.

Gmail Pop Settings:

• Its address is pop.gmail.com.
• It uses SSL.
• Like IMAP here username and password are your username and password of Gmail’s account.
• Port number is 995.
• If you want pop settings to work, you need to enable it from settings.
• Some servers offer access to both IMAP and POP services to their clients. It is the decision of administrator to choose which one.

Incoming Mail Server Gmail iPhone:

To access these settings, you will have to go to email settings from your iPhone and then add accounts then enter name and password and then you are done to enjoy the superb services at your fingertips.

Google Outgoing Mail Server:

Gmail outgoing server is SMTP.

• SMTP stands for simple mail transfer protocol.
• It is for sending emails.
• For SMTP  good security is needed otherwise there are spam threats.   
• It became famous in 1980.
• It is used for the delivery of email, i.e., it pushes the email to be delivered to its desired destination.
• It can also send emails from a mail client to a emails server.

The email you send via Googles’ SMTP email server is indexed.

Restrictions on sending per email by Google is done by this server.

Gmail SMTP Mail Server Settings:

The server address is smtp.gmail.com.

Username and password are same that you entered while making your account on Gmail or you edited last time from Gmail settings. Port number is 465.

It uses SSL.

SSL stands for secure socket layer.

SSL adds a security layer to your data. In this way, it remains safe. Current internet data security and traffic issues require a secure mechanism on the internet and for that purpose SSL works for secure digital communication.

The Mechanism Behind the Sending and Receiving Emails:

When you press the send button after composing an email, SMTP comes into action.

It communicates with the client.

1. Your email address and other details of email are provided to SMTP server by your client who proceeds them to IMAP / POP server.
2. To find the server of the recipient, it takes the help of domain name server and gets the IP address.
3. After getting the IP address, it communicates with SMTP server of the recipient and the message is sent.
4. Then the recipient SMTP server comes into action.
5. It scans the email, checks some setting and forwards the email to IMAP/POP server.
6. Then the recipient’s email client can view /download it.

Above explained is the process which is done in the blink of an eye when you send a letter.

This process is the result of technology.

Know more about DNS by the at Infographic – Working of DNS Server.

Conclusion:

Mail servers serve people for sending and receiving data on the internet. With data, we mean emails.

Incoming mail server Gmail and Google outgoing mail server are helping individuals in the best possible way.

It is a form of technology that is assisting people and making it easy for people to transfer information in the blink of an eye.

Read more at What are servers?