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What is the proper time delay between sending emails for SMTP to not fail on Windows Server 2008 R2 machines?

For example, if I set a 500ms delay, would it successfully send all emails?

My software will send announcement email to my players. i can send all emails without any delay or i can make the software sleep like 500ms for each sending email

BillThor
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Furkan Gözükara
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    I'm not following your question. What time delay are you referring to? Where do you set this time delay? What SMTP server are you running? – joeqwerty Nov 19 '11 at 16:11
  • this is the delay i am going to set at my email sending software. like send email then wait 500 ms and then send the second email. – Furkan Gözükara Nov 19 '11 at 17:36
  • This makes no sense. Either you've grasped hold of the wrong end of the stick somewhere, you've missed something very important out of your explanation or you're doing something very unusual. – Rob Moir Nov 19 '11 at 21:59
  • If you need a delay for SMTP not to fail, you are doing something *horribly* wrong somewhere. – David Schwartz Nov 20 '11 at 03:39
  • i really don't understand you. i did not modify anything. my software will send announcement email to my players. i can send all emails without any delay or i can make the software sleep like 500ms for each sending email – Furkan Gözükara Nov 20 '11 at 12:46
  • Then the answer is "No". Setting the delay to zero millisecconds is sufficient to send all mails. – mailq Nov 20 '11 at 13:02
  • **i really don't understand you.** - the feeling is mutual. If you don't like the quality of the answers you need to improve the quality of your question. Pretend that none of us know what you're talking about and if you "did not modify anything" that we wouldn't know that. Nor would we know what the "anything" you're talking about is. – Rob Moir Nov 20 '11 at 13:55

1 Answers1

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If your software follows the RFCs no delay is required. You should be able to send multiple emails in the same connection without delays.

If your software just sends messages and relies on delays rather than following the RFCs, there is no correct answer.

EDIT: If you read the RFCs you will see mail is sent using a conversational protocol. If your software follows that protocol, there is no need to insert delays between messages. Some software just uses delays where it should be following the conversation. Software that does that is very fragile and may break if the other end does not respond within a reasonable time.

Adding delays between messages when you send a bunch may or may not be a good thing. Delays give the server time to process the last message before a new message arrives. Not having a delay increases the chance that multiple messages can be sent upstream with one connection. Unless you overload your mail server I would opt for no delay.

BillThor
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