# Using ColdFusion with Mail Servers

Adding email to your ColdFusion applications lets you respond automatically to user requests. You can use email in your ColdFusion applications in many different ways. These are just a few examples:

- Trigger email messages based on users' requests or orders.
- Allow users to request and receive additional information or documents through email.
- Confirm customer information based on order entries or updates.
- Send invoices or reminders, using information pulled from database queries.

ColdFusion offers several ways to integrate email into your applications. For sending email, you generally use the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP). For receiving mail, you use the Post Office Protocol (POP) to retrieve email from the mail server. To use email messaging in your ColdFusion applications you must have access to an SMTP server and/or a valid POP account.

In your ColdFusion application pages, you use the CFMAIL and CFPOP tags to send and receive mail respectively. The following sections describe ColdFusion email features and offer examples of these tags.