JavaMail API

JavaMail API Release 1.4.5

  • March 23, 2012
  • DOWNLOAD | FAQ

  • The JavaMail 1.4.5 release contains several bug fixes and enhancements, including:
  • SOCKS5 support (requires JDK 1.5 or newer)
  • authentication information (e.g., passwords) is no longer included in debug output by default

JavaMail API Release 1.4.4

  • Ability to cache POP3 messages on disk.
  • In-memory POP3 message cache now uses soft references.
  • NTLM authentication support is now integrated, no longer need jcifs.jar.
  • SASL authentication support for SMTP.
  • New demo classes showing how to handle old non-MIME Outlook messages.

JavaMail API Release 1.4.3

  • November 20, 2009
  • DOWNLOAD| README |CHANGES|NOTES|SSLNOTES|FAQ

  • The JavaMail 1.4.3 release contains several bug fixes and enhancements, including:
    • A LogHandler that logs messages using email, for use with java.util.logging.
    • NTLM authentication support, for connecting with Microsoft Exchange.
    • STLS support for POP3.

    JavaMail API Release 1.4.2


    • The JavaMail 1.4.2 release contains several bug fixes, performance improvements, and enhancements, including:

    • Improvements to InternetAddress parsing.
    • Better support for bogus messages.
    • Significant rewrite of IMAP locking to avoid deadlocks.
    • Reduced memory usage for very large IMAP mailboxes.
    • Message Delivery Notifications parsing support.
    • Simplified SSL support.
    • Simplified SSL support.

    JavaMail API Release 1.4.1


    • The JavaMail 1.4.1 release contains several bug fixes, performance improvements, and minor enhancements. It also contains EXPERIMENTAL support for the IMAP IDLE command, which has been requested for many years. See the javadocs for the "idle" method in the com.sun.mail.imap.IMAPFolder class. The monitor.java demo program (included with JavaMail) has been modified to illustrate use of this method to watch for new messages.

JavaMail API Release 1.3


  • The JavaMail 1.3 API release contains a number of enhancements to improve the usability and performance of the JavaMail API. This release also contains additional bug fixes.
  • The JavaMail 1.3 API provides a set of abstract classes that model a mail system. The API provides a platform independent and protocol independent framework to build Java technology-based mail and messaging applications. The JavaMail API is implemented as a Java platform optional package and is also available as part of the Java 2 platform, Enterprise Edition. Sun provides a royalty-free reference implementation, in binary form, that developers will be able to use and ship.

JavaMail API Release 1.3.2


  • The JavaMail(TM) API 1.3.2 release contains over 25 bug fixes (described in CHANGES.txt) and several new features:
    • SSL/TLS support for all protocols
    • STARTTLS support for the IMAP and SMTP protocols
    • SASL support for the IMAP protocol
    • access to detailed SMTP error codes
  • These features are described in more detail in NOTES.txt and SSLNOTES.txt. SSL support requires J2SE 1.4 or newer. SASL support requires J2SE 5.0 or newer.

JavaMail API Release 1.4


  • The JavaMail 1.4 release includes many API improvements approved by the Java Community Process via JSR-919. It also includes improvements in MIME parsing performance and support for parsing and constructing Delivery Status Notifications.

JavaMail API Release 1.3.1


  • The JavaMail API 1.3.1 release contains bug fixes as well as support for DIGEST-MD5 authentication in the SMTP provider.
  • The JavaMail 1.3.1 API provides a set of abstract classes that model a mail system. The API provides a platform independent and protocol independent framework to build Java technology-based mail and messaging applications. The JavaMail API is implemented as a Java platform optional package and is also available as part of the Java 2 platform, Enterprise Edition. Sun provides a royalty-free reference implementation, in binary form, that developers will be able to use and ship.

JavaMail API Release 1.3.3

  • August 30, 2005
  • DOWNLOAD|README | CHANGES | NOTES | FAQ

    • The JavaMail 1.3.3 release contains over 20 bug fixes and enhancements, including support for more protocol-specific features and significant performance enhancements for base64 encoding and decoding.
    • These features are described in more detail in NOTES.txt and SSLNOTES.txt. SSL support requires J2SE 1.4 or newer. SASL support requires J2SE 5.0 or newer.

JavaMail API

JavaMail Service Provider Guide

(February 11, 1999)
We are pleased to present the final version of the JavaMail Service Provider Guide. Please send comments to javamail_ww@oracle.com

Note: Unless you're using Java SE 6, you will also need the JavaBeans Activation Framework (JAF) extension that provides the javax.activation package. We suggest you use version 1.1.1 of JAF, the latest release. JAF is included with Java SE 6 and 7.

You will also need the JavaBeans Activation Framework extension or JAF (javax.activation). We recommend the latest 1.0.2 version.