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Quick Mail Transfer Protocol
The Quick Mail Transfer Protocol (QMTP) is a rapid mail transfer system designed primarily to facilitate quick and efficient routing of electronic mail messages over a network. Unlike traditional mail protocols that focus on extensive feature sets, QMTP prioritizes fast data transmission between mail hosts with minimal overhead, catering to circumstances where speed and simplicity are essential. Though not widely adopted compared to SMTP, it serves niche applications where throughput and performance are critical factors..
Quick Mail Transfer Protocol (QMTP) is an alternative to the conventional Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP). Its design goal is to optimize the transmission of email messages specifically between trusted hosts within a mail system or an organization's network. QMTP deliberately reduces protocol complexity by removing negotiation steps found in SMTP, instead focusing on direct, fast message delivery using block-oriented data transfer.
QMTP operates typically over TCP port 209, but it can also utilize UDP to deliver lightweight notification or signaling messages if configured accordingly. Its binary-oriented protocol allows for a high-speed exchange of relatively large email messages due to reduced parsing overhead and minimized command interactions. This makes QMTP particularly suitable within tightly controlled mail relay systems where security and trust assumptions permit streamlined communication.
Despite its efficiency advantages, QMTP has not gained widespread adoption largely due to SMTP's ubiquity, extensibility, and feature completeness. As such, QMTP often finds use in specialized or legacy deployments where performance is prioritized over standardization, operating alongside more feature-rich protocols or dedicated internal relay systems.