Overview

MailBee Message Queue is a queue-based email-sending system which operates in background (as a Windows NT service) intercepting "send e-mail" requests from MailBee SMTP and MailBee.NET SMTP components and then sending these emails. This frees that components from waiting until the email messages get actually sent. It is especially important when your application sends lots of messages at once.

Without MailBee Message Queue, message delivery is performed by Send method of MailBee SMTP and MailBee.NET SMTP components, and takes as much time as it needs to transfer the message over the wire to SMTP server.

On other hand, while using MailBee Message Queue, the only thing done in the component is creation of the message itself. In order MailBee Message Queue to be utilized, SendToQueue method should be used (or SubmitToPickupFolder for MailBee.NET SMTP). This method takes one parameter - queue folder path where to store the message, and generates and saves the message there as a file with ".eml" extension. Versions with additional parameters are available too but the idea remains the same.

Generally speaking, MailBee Message Queue can pickup and deliver emails created by other components or even manually. This is possible because it consumes regular .EML files in MIME format. The only requirement is that the sender must be listed in x-sender header and the recipients - in x-receiver headers.

MailBee Message Queue periodically checks (polls) the queue folder and when it founds new message file(s) there, it reads and sends them to SMTP server.

MailBee Message Queue is configured by Message Queue Control Panel (located in Programs/MailBee/Message Queue menu), or by direct editing ini-file mmq.ini, where you can set queue folder path, SMTP server name, port and authentication options, values of timeout and polling intervals, logging options, etc.

Installing and uninstalling MailBee Message Queue as a Windows NT service is performed through Message Queue Control Panel application or commands in Programs/MailBee/Message Queue menu.

Note Installing MailBee Message Queue just installs it onto your machine. It does not install/start the MailBee Message Queue's Windows NT service. Installing and starting the service (as well as stopping and uninstalling the service) is performed through Message Queue Control Panel or commands in Programs/MailBee/Message Queue menu.