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What Is an Electronic Mailing List? Definition and How It Works

An electronic mailing list redistributes a message sent to one address to multiple subscribers. It may support group discussion or announcements, with features such as moderation and reply handling determined by its setup.
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An electronic mailing list is a service that takes an email sent to one list address and redistributes it to multiple subscribers. Also called an email list or mailing list, it can carry group discussion or send announcements; it is not simply a collection of addresses, and its moderation and reply behavior depend on how the list is set up.

How an electronic mailing list works

A sender addresses a message to the list’s email address. A list agent receives it and redistributes it to the list’s recipients. In its October 2010 experimental RFC 5983, the IETF describes a mailing list as a mechanism for distributing a message to multiple recipients by sending to one address. RFC 5983 is marked obsolete by RFC 6783, so it is useful here as an explicit definition, not as a claim about the current standard.

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The list address therefore acts as an entry point to a redistribution service. Depending on the particular list, messages may be accepted automatically, moderated, or restricted in other ways; no single set of rules applies to every list.

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What mailing lists are used for

Discussion lists

On a discussion list, subscribers can send messages to the group, allowing an exchange among members. Whether a reply goes to the list or only to the original sender depends on the list’s configuration.

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Announcement lists

An announcement list distributes information to subscribers, often with posting limited to designated senders. Newsletters are one familiar example, but not every mailing list is a marketing newsletter.

Some lists are moderated, while others are not. The IETF’s 1993 Internet Users’ Glossary notes that lists may be moderated; that possibility should not be mistaken for a universal feature.

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Mailing list versus email alias

The terms can be used loosely in everyday conversation, but SMTP distinguishes the behaviors. An alias expands a pseudo-mailbox into destination addresses while leaving the message unchanged. A mailing list redistributes the message through a list mechanism. RFC 5321 describes this distinction; it does not mean that every service marketed as a group address will use the same implementation.

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Behavior Email alias Mailing list
What happens to a message The pseudo-mailbox expands to destination addresses; the message remains unchanged. A list agent receives and redistributes the message to recipients.
List-specific handling Address expansion alone does not imply list-specific processing. The list mechanism may apply list-specific behavior, depending on its setup.
Reply destination Not established by alias expansion alone. Depends on the particular list’s configuration.

An email distribution group may resemble either arrangement from a user’s perspective. To tell what it actually does, look at its message handling and configuration rather than relying only on its name.

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How email software can identify a list

The List-Id header provides a standardized identifier for a mailing list. RFC 2919 specifies it so software can recognize a list independently of which host or list processor serves it, which can help with filtering or other message handling. Not every list message necessarily includes this header.

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