Amessage delivery agent (MDA), or mail delivery agent, is a computer software component that is responsible for the delivery of e-mail messages to a local recipient's mailbox.[1] It is also called a local delivery agent (LDA).
Within the Internet mail architecture, local message delivery is achieved through a process of handling messages from the message transfer agent, and storing mail into the recipient's environment (typically a mailbox).
Many mail handling software products bundle multiple message delivery agents with the message transfer agent component, providing for site customization of the specifics of mail delivery to a user.
OnUnix-like systems, procmail and maildrop are the most popular MDAs. The Local Mail Transfer Protocol (LMTP) is a protocol that is frequently implemented by network-aware MDAs.[citation needed]
The mail delivery agent is generally not started from the command line, but is usually invoked by mail delivery subsystems, such as a mail transport agent, or a mail retrieval agent.
