RFC Archive
MAIL PROTOCOLS



  1. Transport Protocols
  2. Access Protocols
  3. Formats
  4. Interfaceing to other mailsystems
  5. Privacy
  6. News
  7. Compression Formats
  8. Representation Formats
  9. Manegment

Transport

MTP, SMTP & Related
Current
RFC 821
Simple Mail Transfer Protocol
(Replaces RFC 788)
RFC 974
Mail routing and the domain system
RFC 1047
Duplicate messages and SMTP
RFC 1090
SMTP on X.25
RFC 1428
Transition of Internet Mail from Just-Send-8 to 8Bit-SMTP/MIME
RFC 1429
Listserv Distribute Protocol
RFC 1641
Using Unicode with MIME
RFC 1652
SMTP Service Extension for 8bit-MIMEtransport
(Replaces RFC 1426)
RFC 1711
Classifications in E-mail Routing
RFC 1830
SMTP Service Extensions for Transmission of Large and Binary MIME Messages
RFC 1845
SMTP Service Extension for Checkpoint/Restart
RFC 1846
SMTP 521 reply code
RFC 1869
SMTP Service Extensions
(Replaces RFC 1651)
RFC 1870
SMTP Service Extension for Message Size Declaration
(Replaces RFC 1653)
RFC 1891
SMTP Service Extension for Delivery Status Notifications
RFC 1893
Enhanced Mail System Status Codes
RFC 1985
SMTP Service Extension for Remote Message Queue Starting
RFC 2034
SMTP Service Extension for Returning Enhanced Error Codes
RFC 2152
UTF-7 - A Mail-Safe Transformation Format of Unicode (Replaces RFC 16422)
RFC 2197
SMTP Service Extension for Command Pipelining
(Replaces RFC 1854)
Old
RFC 772
Mail Transfer Protocol
(Replaced by RFC 780)
RFC 780
Mail Transfer Protocol
(Replaces RFC 772, Replaced by RFC 788)
RFC 788
Simple Mail Transfer Protocol
(Replaces RFC 780, Replaced by RFC 821)
RFC 1425
SMTP Service Extensions
(Replaced by RFC 1651)
RFC 1426
SMTP Service Extension for 8bit-MIMEtransport
(Replaced by RFC 1652)
RFC 1427
SMTP Service Extension for Message Size Declaration
(Replaced by RFC 1653)
RFC 1642
UTF-7 - A Mail-Safe Transformation Format of Unicode (Replaced by RFC 2152)
RFC 1651
SMTP Service Extensions
(Replaces RFC 1425, Replaced by RFC 1869)
RFC 1653
SMTP Service Extension for Message Size Declaration
(Replaces RFC 1427, Replaced by RFC 1870)
RFC 1854
SMTP Service Extension for Command Pipelining
(Replaced by RFC 2197)

Access

IMAP - Internet Mail Access Protocol
Current
RFC 1176
Interactive Mail Access Protocol - Version 2
(Replaces RFC1064)
RFC 1203
Interactive Mail Access Protocol - Version 3
(Replaces RFC1064)
RFC 1731
IMAP4 Authentication mechanisms
RFC 1732
IMAP4 COMPATIBILITY WITH IMAP2 AND IMAP2BIS
RFC 1733
DISTRIBUTED ELECTRONIC MAIL MODELS IN IMAP4
RFC 2060
INTERNET MESSAGE ACCESS PROTOCOL - VERSION 4rev1
(Replaces RFC 1730)
RFC 2061
IMAP4 COMPATIBILITY WITH IMAP2BIS
RFC 2062
Internet Message Access Protocol - Obsolete Syntax
RFC 2086
IMAP4 ACL extension
RFC 2087
IMAP4 QUOTA extension
RFC 2088
IMAP4 non-synchroniziong literals
RFC 2177
IMAP4 IDLE command
RFC 2180
IMAP4 Multi-Accessed Mailbox Practice
RFC 2192
IMAP URL Scheme
RFC 2193
IMAP4 Mailbox Referrals
RFC 2195
IMAP/POP AUTHorize Extension for Simple Challenge/Response
(Replaces RFC 2095)
RFC 2221
IMAP4 Login Referrals
Old
RFC 1064
Interactive Mail Access Protocol - Version 2
(Replaced by RFC 1176 and RFC 1203)
RFC 1730
INTERNET MESSAGE ACCESS PROTOCOL - VERSION 4
(Replaced by RFC 2060)
RFC 2095
IMAP/POP AUTHorize Extension for Simple Challenge/Response
(Replaced by RFC 2195)

PCMAIL
Current
RFC 1056
PCMAIL: A distributed mail system for personal computers
(Replaces RFC 993)
Old
RFC 984
PCMAIL: A distributed mail system for personal computers
(Replaced by RFC 993)
RFC 993
PCMAIL: A distributed mail system for personal computers
(Replaces RFC 984, Replaced by RFC 1056)

POP - Post Office Protocol
Current
RFC 937
Post Office Protocol - Version 2
(Replaces RFC 918)
RFC 1082
Post Office Protocol - Version 3: Extended service offerings
RFC 1734
POP3 AUTHentication command
RFC 1939
Post Office Protocol - Version 3
(Replaces RFC 1725)
RFC 2095
IMAP/POP AUTHorize Extension for Simple Challenge/Response
Informational
RFC 1957
Some Observations on Implementations of the Post Office Protocol (POP3)
Old
RFC 918
Post Office Protocol
(Replaced by RFC 937)
RFC 1081
Post Office Protocol - Version 3
(Replaced by RFC 1225)
RFC 1225
Post Office Protocol - Version 3
(Replaces RFC 1081, Replaced by RFC 1460)
RFC 1460
Post Office Protocol - Version 3
(Replaces RFC 1225, Replaced by RFC 1725)
RFC 1725
Post Office Protocol - Version 3
(Replaces RFC 1460, Replaced by RFC 1939)

Others
Current
RFC 1339
Remote Mail Checking Protocol
RFC 2033
Local Mail Transfer Protocol

Formats

822 & MIME
Current
RFC 822
Standard for the format of ARPA Internet text messages
(Replaces RFC 733, Updated by RFC 987 and RFC 1148)
RFC 1049
Content-type header field for Internet messages
(Updated by RFC 1154)
RFC 1343
A User Agent Configuration Mechanism For Multimedia Mail Format Information
RFC 1344
Implications of MIME for Internet Mail Gateways
RFC 1345
Character Mnemonics & Character Sets
RFC 1357
A Format for E-mailing Bibliographic Records
RFC 1428
Transition of Internet Mail from Just-Send-8 to 8Bit-SMTP/MIME
RFC 1437
The Extension of MIME Content-Types to a New Medium
RFC 1456
Conventions for Encoding the Vietnamese Language VISCII: VIetnamese Standard Code for Information Interchange VIQR: VIetnamese Quoted-Readable Specification Revision 1.1
RFC 1468
Japanese Character Encoding for Internet Messages
RFC 1489
Registration of a Cyrillic Character Set
RFC 1505
Encoding Header Field for Internet Messages
(Replaces RFC 1154)
RFC 1524
A User Agent Configuration Mechanism For Multimedia Mail Format Information
RFC 1528
Principles of Operation for the TPC.INT Subdomain: Remote Printing -- Technical Procedures
(Replaced RFC 1486)
RFC 1529
Principles of Operation for the TPC.INT Subdomain: Remote Printing -- Administrative Policies
(Replaced RFC 1486)
RFC 1530
Principles of Operation for the TPC.INT Subdomain: General Principles and Policy
RFC 1554
ISO-2022-JP-2: Multilingual Extension of ISO-2022-JP
RFC 1555
Hebrew Character Encoding for Internet Messages
RFC 1556
Handling of Bi-directional Texts in MIME
RFC 1557
Korean Character Encoding for Internet Messages
RFC 1664
Using the Internet DNS to Distribute RFC1327 Mail Address Mapping Tables
RFC 1703
Principles of Operation for the TPC.INT Subdomain: Radio Paging -- Technical Procedures
(Replaces RFC 1569)
RFC 1740
MIME Encapsulation of Macintosh files - MacMIME
RFC 1741
MIME Content Type for BinHex Encoded Files
RFC 1766
Tags for the Identification of Languages
RFC 1767
MIME Encapsulation of EDI Objects
RFC 1806
Communicating Presentation Information in Internet Messages: The Content-Disposition Header
RFC 1815
Character Sets ISO-10646 and ISO-10646-J-1
RFC 1842
ASCII Printable Characters-Based Chinese Character Encoding for Internet Messages
RFC 1843
HZ - A Data Format for Exchanging Files of Arbitrarily Mixed Chinese and ASCII characters
RFC 1844
Multimedia E-mail (MIME) User Agent Checklist
(Replaces RFC 1820)
RFC 1847
Security Multiparts for MIME: Multipart/Signed and Multipart/Encrypted
RFC 1848
MIME Object Security Services
RFC 1864
The Content-MD5 Header Field
(Replaces RFC 1544)
RFC 1873
Message/External-Body Content-ID Access Type
RFC 1874
SGML Media Types
RFC 1892
The Multipart/Report Content Type for the Reporting of Mail System Administrative Messages
RFC 1894
An Extensible Message Format for Delivery Status Notifications
RFC 1895
The Application/CALS-1840 Content-type
RFC 1896
The text/enriched MIME Content-type
(Replaces RFC 1563)
RFC 1911
Voice Profile for Internet Mail
RFC 1922
Chinese Character Encoding for Internet Messages
RFC 1927
Suggested Additional MIME Types for Associating Documents
RFC 1947
Greek Character Encoding for Electronic Mail Messages
RFC 1991
PGP Message Exchange Formats
RFC 2015
MIME Security with Pretty Good Privacy (PGP)
RFC 2017
Definition of the URL MIME External-Body Access-Type
RFC 2045
Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME) Part One: Format of Internet Message Bodies
(Replaces RFC 1521, Updated by RFC 2184 and RFC 2231)
RFC 2046
Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME) Part Two: Media Types
(Replaces RFC 1521)
RFC 2047
MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions) Part Three: Message Header Extensions for Non-ASCII Text
(Replaces RFC 1522, Updated by RFC 2184 and RFC 2231)
RFC 2048
Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME) Part Four: Registration Procedures
(Replaces RFC 1590)
RFC 2049
Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME) Part Five: Conformance Criteria and Examples
(Replaces RFC 1521)
RFC 2076
Common Internet Message Headers
RFC 2077
The Model Primary Content Type for Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions
RFC 2110
MIME E-mail Encapsulation of Aggregate Documents, such as HTML (MHTML)
RFC 2112
The MIME Multipart/Related Content-type
(Replaces RFC 1872)
RFC 2156
MIXER (Mime Internet X.400 Enhanced Relay): Mapping between X.400 and RFC 822/MIME
(Updated RFC 822, Replaces RFC 987, 1026, 1138, 1148, 1327, 1495)
RFC 2157
Mapping between X.400 and RFC-822/MIME Message Bodies
RFC 2158
X.400 Image Body Parts
RFC 2159
A MIME Body Part for FAX
RFC 2160
Carrying PostScript in X.400 and MIME
RFC 2161
A MIME Body Part for ODA
RFC 2183
Communicating Presentation Information in Internet Messages: The Content-Disposition Header Field
(Updates RFC 1806, Updated by RFC 2184 and RFC 2231)
RFC 2231
MIME Parameter Value and Encoded Word Extensions: Character Sets, Languages, and Continuations
(Updates RFC 2045, RFC 2047 and RFC 2183, Replaces RFC 2184)
RFC 2237
Japanese Character Encoding for Internet Messages
RFC 2279
UTF-8, a transformation format of ISO 10646
(Replaces RFC 2044)
RFC 2298
An Extensible Message Format for Message Disposition Notifications
Old
RFC 561
Standardizing Network Mail Headers
(Updated by RFC 680)
RFC 724
Proposed official standard for the format of ARPA Network messages
(Replaced by RFC 733)
RFC 733
Standard for the format of ARPA network text messages
(Replaces RFC 561, RFC 680 and RFC 724, Replaced by RFC 822)
RFC 1154
Encoding Header Field for Internet Messages
(Updates RFC 1049, Replaced by RFC 1505)
RFC 1341
MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions): Mechanisms for Specifying and Describing the Format of Internet Message Bodies
(Replaced by RFC 1521)
RFC 1342
Representation of Non-ASCII Text in Internet Message Headers
(Replaced by RFC 1522)
RFC 1486
An Experiment in Remote Printing
(Replaced by RFC 1528 and RFC 1529)
RFC 1521
MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions) Part One: Mechanisms for Specifying and Describing the Format of Internet Message Bodies
(Replaces RFC 1341, Updated by RFC 1590, Replaced by RFC 2045, RFC 2046 and RFC 2049)
RFC 1522
MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions) Part Two: Message Header Extensions for Non-ASCII Text
(Replaces RFC 1342, Replaced by RFC 2047
RFC 1523
The text/enriched MIME Content-type
(Replaced by RFC 1563)
RFC 1544
The Content-MD5 Header Field
(Replaced by RFC 1864)
RFC 1563
The text/enriched MIME Content-type
(Replaces RFC 1523, Replaced by RFC 1896)
RFC 1569
Principles of Operation for the TPC.INT Subdomain: Radio Paging -- Technical Procedures
(Replaced by RFC 1703)
RFC 1590
Media Type Registration Procedure
(Updates RFC 1521, Replaced by RFC 2048)
RFC 1820
Multimedia E-mail (MIME) User Agent Checklist
(Replaced by RFC 1844)
RFC 1872
The MIME Multipart/Related Content-type
(Replaced by RFC 2112)
RFC 2044
UTF-8, a transformation format of Unicode and ISO 10646
(Replaced by RFC 2279)
RFC 2184
MIME Parameter Value and Encoded Word Extensions: Character Sets, Languages, and Continuations
(Updates RFC 2045, RFC 2047 and RFC 2183, Replaced by RFC 2231)
RFC 886
Proposed standard for message header munging
RFC 934
Proposed standard for message encapsulation
RFC 1153
Digest message format
UUCP Mail
Current
RFC 976
UUCP Mail Interchange Format Standard

Interfaceing to other mailsystems

Current
RFC 1138
Mapping between X.400(1988) / ISO 10021 and RFC 822
(Updates RFC 1026)
RFC 1494
Equivalences between 1988 X.400 and RFC-822 Message Bodies
RFC 1495
Mapping between X.400 and RFC-822 Message Bodies
(Updates RFC 1327)
RFC 1496
Rules for downgrading messages from X.400/88 to X.400/84 when MIME content-types are present in the messages
(Updates RFC 1328)
RFC 1502
X.400 Use of Extended Character Sets
RFC 1506
A tutorial on gatewaying between X.400 and Internet mail
RFC 1615
Migrating from X.400(84) to X.400(88)
RFC 1616
X.400(1988) for the Academic and Research Community in Europe
RFC 1648
Postmaster Convention for X.400 Operations
RFC 1649
Operational Requirements for X.400 Management Domains in the GO-MHS Community
RFC 1685
Writing X.400 O/R Names
RFC 2162
MaXIM-11 - Mapping between X.400 / Internet mail and Mail-11 mail
(Replaces RFC 1405)
Old
RFC 987
Mapping between X.400 and RFC 822
(Updates RFC 822, Updated by RFC 1026)
RFC 1026
Mapping between X.400 and RFC-822
(Updates RFC 987, Updated by RFC 1138)
RFC 1148
Mapping between X.400 (1988) / ISO 10021 and RFC 822
(Replaces RFC 987, Replaced by RFC 1327)
RFC 1327
Mapping between X.400(1988) / ISO 10021 and RFC 822
(Updates RFC 822, Replaced by RFC 1495)
RFC 1328
X.400 1988 to 1984 downgrading
(Updated by RFC 1496)
RFC 1405
Mapping between X.400(1984/1988) and Mail-11 (DECnet mail)
(Replaced by RFC 2162)
RFC 1137
Mapping between full RFC 822 and RFC 822 with restricted encoding

Privacy

Current
RFC 1319
The MD2 Message-Digest Algorithm
(Updates RFC 1115)
RFC 1421
Privacy Enhancement for Internet Electronic Mail: Part I: Message Encryption and Authentication Procedures
(Replaces RFC 1113)
RFC 1422
Privacy Enhancement for Internet Electronic Mail: Part II: Certificate-Based Key Management
(Replaces RFC 1114)
RFC 1423
Privacy Enhancement for Internet Electronic Mail: Part III: Algorithms, Modes, and Identifiers
(Replaces RFC 1115)
RFC 1424
Privacy Enhancement for Internet Electronic Mail: Part IV: Key Certification and Related Services
Old
RFC 989
Privacy enhancement for Internet electronic mail: Part I: Message encipherment and authentication procedures
(Replaced by RFC 1040 and RFC 1113)
RFC 1040
Privacy enhancement for Internet electronic mail: Part I: Message encipherment and authentication procedures
(Replaces RFC 989, Replaced by RFC 1113)
RFC 1113
Privacy enhancement for Internet electronic mail: Part I - message encipherment and authentication procedures
(Replaces RFC 989 and RFC 1040, Replaced by RFC 1421)
RFC 1114
Privacy enhancement for Internet electronic mail: Part II - certificate-based key management
(Replaced by RFC 1422)
RFC 1115
Privacy enhancement for Internet electronic mail: Part III - algorithms, modes, and identifiers
(Updated by RFC 1319, Replaced by RFC 1423)

News

Current
RFC 977
Network News Transfer Protocol
RFC 1036
Standard for interchange of USENET messages
(Replaces RFC 850)
RFC 1204
Message Posting Protocol (MPP)
RFC 1312
Message Send Protocol
(Replaces RFC 1159)
Old
RFC 850
Standard for interchange of USENET messages
(Replaced by RFC 1036)
RFC 1159
Message Send Protocol
(Replaced by RFC 1312)

Compression Formats

Current
RFC 1314
A File Format for the Exchange of Images in the Internet
RFC 1950
ZLIB Compressed Data Format Specification version 3.3
RFC 1951
DEFLATE Compressed Data Format Specification version 1.3
RFC 1952
GZIP file format specification version 4.3
RFC 2083
PNG (Portable Network Graphics) Specification Version 1.0

Representation Formats

Current
RFC 1003
Issues in Defining an Equations Representation Standard
RFC 1019
Report of the Workshop on Environments for Computational Mathematics July 30, 1987 ACM SIGGRAPH Conference Anaheim Convention Center, Anaheim, California

Manegment

Current
RFC 1211
Problems with the Maintenance of Large Mailing Lists
RFC 2142
MAILBOX NAMES FOR COMMON SERVICES, ROLES AND FUNCTIONS
RFC 1168
Intermail and Commercial Mail Relay services

Magnus Danielson <cfmd(at)bredband(dot)net>