An email digest is an email

Email

Electronic mail, commonly known as email or e-mail, is a method of exchanging digital messages from an author to one or more recipients. Modern email operates across the Internet or other computer networks. Some early email systems required that the author and the recipient both be online at the...

 that is automatically generated by an electronic mailing list

Electronic mailing list

An electronic mailing list is a special usage of email that allows for widespread distribution of information to many Internet users. It is similar to a traditional mailing list — a list of names and addresses — as might be kept by an organization for sending publications to...

 and which combines all exchanged emails during a time period (e.g. day, week, month, etc.) or when a volume limit is reached (e.g. every 10 or 100 messages) into one single message.

Email digests are currently available as an opt-in feature in electronic mailing list

Electronic mailing list

An electronic mailing list is a special usage of email that allows for widespread distribution of information to many Internet users. It is similar to a traditional mailing list — a list of names and addresses — as might be kept by an organization for sending publications to...

 systems such as GNU Mailman

GNU Mailman

GNU Mailman is a computer software application from the GNU project for managing electronic mailing lists.Mailman is coded primarily in Python and currently maintained by Barry Warsaw...

 or LISTSERV

LISTSERV

LISTSERV was the first electronic mailing list software application, consisting of a set of email addresses for a group in which the sender can send one email and it will reach a variety of people...

. It is called an abridged summary in Google Groups

Google Groups

Google Groups is a service from Google Inc. that supports discussion groups, including many Usenet newsgroups, based on common interests. The service was started in 1995 as Deja News, and was transitioned to Google Groups after a February 2001 buyout....

. Other systems than mailing lists implement such a feature. Youtube

YouTube

YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....

 compiles all the communications to users within a time period into a single email.

Technically, the MIME Multipart subtype Multipart/digest as defined in RFC 2046, Section 5.1.5, is a simple way to separate messages and send collections of messages within one single message.

See also

• LISTSERV
  LISTSERV
  LISTSERV was the first electronic mailing list software application, consisting of a set of email addresses for a group in which the sender can send one email and it will reach a variety of people...
  
   email list management software
• Electronic mailing list
  Electronic mailing list
  An electronic mailing list is a special usage of email that allows for widespread distribution of information to many Internet users. It is similar to a traditional mailing list — a list of names and addresses — as might be kept by an organization for sending publications to...
  
  
• GNU Mailman
  GNU Mailman
  GNU Mailman is a computer software application from the GNU project for managing electronic mailing lists.Mailman is coded primarily in Python and currently maintained by Barry Warsaw...
  
  
• Google Groups
  Google Groups
  Google Groups is a service from Google Inc. that supports discussion groups, including many Usenet newsgroups, based on common interests. The service was started in 1995 as Deja News, and was transitioned to Google Groups after a February 2001 buyout....