# Receiving Messages Synchronously and Asynchronously

The EMS APIs allow for both synchronous or asynchronous message consumption. For synchronous consumption, the message consumer explicitly invokes a receive call on the topic or queue.

When synchronously receiving messages, the consumer remains blocked until a message arrives. See Receive Messages for details.

The consumer can receive messages asynchronously by registering a message listener to receive the messages. When a message arrives at the destination, the message listener delivers the message to the message consumer. The message consumer is free to do other operations between messages. See Create a Message Listener for Asynchronous Message Consumption for details.

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