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Mail Transfer Agent (MTA): What It Is and How It Works

BELAKHDAR

October 15, 2024

4 min read

A Mail Transfer Agent (MTA) is software responsible for transferring and routing email messages from one computer to another. It plays a crucial role in the process of email delivery over the internet. When you send an email, the MTA takes care of finding the recipient’s email server and delivering the message to it.

Here’s a brief overview of how an MTA works:

Retrying Delivery: If the recipient’s server is unavailable or busy, the MTA will queue the message and attempt to resend it later.

Sending the Email: When you send an email using an email client (like Outlook, Gmail, or Thunderbird), the email is first sent to an outgoing MTA, typically provided by your email service provider.

Routing the Email: The MTA looks up the recipient’s email domain and finds the appropriate destination MTA using DNS (Domain Name System) to resolve the recipient’s mail server address (using an MX record).

Delivering the Email: The MTA attempts to deliver the email to the recipient’s mail server. If the server is available, the MTA transfers the email, and it is then stored on the recipient’s server until the recipient retrieves it…