mailbox

mailbox

A simulated mailbox in the computer that holds e-mail messages. Mailboxes are stored on disk as a file of messages, a database of messages or as an individual file for each message. The standard mailboxes are usually In, Out, Trash and Junk (Spam). Users typically can create their own mailboxes for saving messages for archival purposes. See spam folder and catch-all mailbox.

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mailbox

(on a computer) the directory in which e-mail messages are stored; also used of the icon that can be clicked to provide access to e-mails

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1.	(messaging)	mailbox - A file belonging to a particular user on a particular computer in which received electronic mail messages are stored ready for the user to read them. A mailbox may be just an electronic mail address to which messages are sent and may not actually correspond to a file if the messages are processed automatically, e.g. a mail server or mailing list.
2.	(programming)	mailbox - A destination for interprocess messages in a message passing system. A mailbox is a message queue, usually stored in the memory of the processor on which the receiving process is running. Primitives are provided for sending a message to a named mailbox and for reading messages from a mailbox.