| International standard | |
|---|---|
| Developed by | |
| Introduced | July 18, 2019; 6 years ago (2019-07-18) |
| Industry | Network communications |
| Website | jmap |
TheJSON Meta Application Protocol (JMAP) is a set of related openInternet Standardprotocols for handlingemail. JMAP is implemented usingJSONAPIs overHTTP and has been developed as an alternative toIMAP and proprietary email APIs such as Google's Gmail and Microsoft'sMAPI (used by Outlook).[1]Additional protocols and data models being built on top of the core of JMAP for handling contacts and calendar synchronization are meant to be potential replacements forCardDAV andCalDAV, and other support is currently in the works.[2]
Developers Bron Gondwana and Neil Jenkins wrote on theInternet Engineering Task Force (IETF) news site that "the current open protocols connecting email clients and servers, such as IMAP, were not designed for the modern age." They cited IMAP's complexity, high resource use, poor adaptability to the network constraints of modern mobile devices, and complex interactions with other protocols like SMTP, CalDAV, and CardDAV.[3] They believe this has resulted in a stagnation in the quality of (especiallyfree) email clients, and the creation of proprietary protocols to overcome these limitations, for instanceMAPI, used byMicrosoft'sExchange Server andOutlook email products.[1]
Gondwana and Jenkins wrote, "JMAP is the result of efforts to address shortcomings [in existing protocols], providing a modern, efficient, easy-to-use API, built on many years of experience and field testing."[3]
The protocol was developed with the intention of providing a modern open, reliable, and easy-to-use solution, and as a result it relies heavily upon the commonly-implementedJSON (JavaScript Object Notation). According to Gondwana ofFastmail, which has been a leading developer of the protocol, "The use of JSON and HTTP as the basis of JMAP was always a key point — it means that people wanting to build something on top of email don’t have to re-implement complex parsers or find a software library in order to get started."[4]
After atmail decided to implement JMAP, CEO Dave Richards wrote in 2018 that "the complexities required to implement IMAP in both user and server side software has resulted in user difficulties and a lack of software options, along with a rigid user experience... The new JMAP protocol solves the existing issues and is modular enough to take advantage of future technology. JMAP makes email better."[5]
JMAP started around 2014 as an internal development project by the Australian-based email providerFastmail.[6] Starting in 2017 a working group at theIETF has been leading the development and standardization process.[7] The core protocol and mail specifications were published in July and August 2019 by Neil Jenkins of Fastmail and Chris Newman of Oracle, asRFC 8620 andRFC 8621.[4][8][9] The WebSocket specification was later published in August 2020 asRFC 8887, and Message Disposition Notification (return receipts) in March 2021 asRFC 9007.[10][11]
Several further JMAP extensions have been published as proposed standards: blob management (RFC 9404), Quotas (RFC 9425), Contacts (RFC 9610), Sharing (RFC 9670),Sieve mail filtering (RFC 9661), and using VAPID with Web Push (RFC 9749). Other ongoing JMAP drafts at IETF are for dealing with calendars, tasks, implementation profiles, and file storage.[2] The working group originally set milestones for some of these to be finalised by the end of 2020.[7]
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