{"id":460,"date":"2011-03-04T17:35:55","date_gmt":"2011-03-04T22:35:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/?p=460"},"modified":"2011-03-05T11:51:26","modified_gmt":"2011-03-05T16:51:26","slug":"imap-vs-pop3-email","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/imap-vs-pop3-email\/","title":{"rendered":"IMAP vs. POP3 Email"},"content":{"rendered":"

IMAP vs. POP3 Email
\nThings you need to know<\/em>
\nA tip for all computer users<\/span><\/p>\n

Back in the day, if you had a desktop computer, you were \t\t\t\t\tlucky. You came home from work, checked your email, browsed \t\t\t\t\tthe infant Web and maybe did a little chatting or download \t\t\t\t\tand turned off your computer and went to bed.<\/p>\n

Today, many of us have laptops, desktops, smart phones, \t\t\t\t\ttablet computers, or other connected devices. Many of us are \t\t\t\t\ton the go and need to check our email from wherever we are \t\t\t\t\twith whatever Internet-connected device we are using at the \t\t\t\t\ttime – be it a smartphone, netbook, laptop or tablet \t\t\t\t\tcomputer.<\/p>\n

POP3 email is fine if all you do is access your email from \t\t\t\t\tone location. POP3 stands for Post \t\t\t\t\tOffice Protocol 3. When you use this method, you download \t\t\t\t\tthe mail from the mail server and store your messages in \t\t\t\t\tfolders on your computer. Once you check your email, there’s no more mail on your mail server. Every time you check your mail, you remove all the mail from your email account on the server. Once you download your mail, it’s stored on your computer. \t\t\t\t\tPost Office Protocol or POP email is the original email \t\t\t\t\tprotocol, and at one time was the only protocol available in \t\t\t\t\tmost email clients and from most ISPs.<\/p>\n

IMAP is different. It’s more \t\t\t\t\tadvanced and gives you more options about how you wish to \t\t\t\t\thandle your email. When you check email using IMAP the mail \t\t\t\t\tremains on the server, once you check your email the mail \t\t\t\t\tthat was on the server is marked as “read” so you don’t keep \t\t\t\t\tchecking the same mail over and over. Yes, it’s a difficult \t\t\t\t\tconcept to understand, but it works well for those who \t\t\t\t\taccess their email from multiple devices or from multiple \t\t\t\t\tlocations.<\/p>\n

With IMAP you set up folders on the mail server and your \t\t\t\t\temail and folders always stay on the server. When you \t\t\t\t\tcheck email, the folder structure on the server is mirrored \t\t\t\t\t(or synchronized) with your email program. You can create \t\t\t\t\tmessage rules using your IMAP-capable email program and do \t\t\t\t\teverything else you’re using to using POP3 with IMAP.<\/p>\n

IMAP stands for Internet Message Access Protocol (formerly \t\t\t\t\tknown as Internet Mail Access Protocol). The most \t\t\t\t\tdistinctive feature of IMAP is your e-mail messages stay \t\t\t\t\ton the mail server, instead of being downloaded to your \t\t\t\t\tcomputer.<\/p>\n

Checking your e-mail using an IMAP-capable email program – \t\t\t\t\tor accessing you mail with a Web browser (Web Mail) allows \t\t\t\t\tyou to keep your messages on the mail server where you can \t\t\t\t\taccess them from anywhere, using different Internet \t\t\t\t\tconnected devices. IMAP is also faster than POP3 since \t\t\t\t\tinitially only the mail headers are downloaded. The rest of \t\t\t\t\tthe message will be visible if you click on the mail to read \t\t\t\t\tit. You cannot tell the difference between an email message \t\t\t\t\taccessed with IMAP from one downloaded using POP3 – they \t\t\t\t\tlook identical. quicker access to e-mail.<\/p>\n

IMAP lets you check your email from multiple computers and \t\t\t\t\tdevices and all your mail is always synchronized to whatever \t\t\t\t\tdevice you’re using. So if you check your mail from your \t\t\t\t\tdesktop in Boston, and you fly to Miami and check your email \t\t\t\t\ton your laptop the mail on your desktop at home, is exactly \t\t\t\t\tthe same – including the folder structure and all messages – \t\t\t\t\tas your laptop computer in your hotel room in Miami. Unlike \t\t\t\t\tPOP3 email, where checking your email removes the messages \t\t\t\t\tfrom the mail server, IMAP synchronizes your email between \t\t\t\t\tthe mail server and your email program.<\/p>\n

Most all email programs available today – Windows Live Mail, \t\t\t\t\tWindows Mail, Outlook, Thunderbird, and many others – are \t\t\t\t\tIMAP-ready. You make the choice when you set up your email \t\t\t\t\taccount whether you want to use POP3 or IMAP.<\/p>\n

The major disadvantage to IMAP is if your ISP only provides \t\t\t\t\tyou with only a minimum amount of mail server space (say \t\t\t\t\t10MB) your server can become full quickly – because all your \t\t\t\t\tmail always remains on the server, even after you’ve checked \t\t\t\t\tit. And if your mailbox becomes full, your recipient will \t\t\t\t\treceive a message that their mail was rejected because your \t\t\t\t\tmailbox is full. If you use email heavily – or if your ISP \t\t\t\t\tdoesn’t give you much server space for email, you probably \t\t\t\t\tshouldn’t use IMAP. However Gmail offers IMAP service and \t\t\t\t\tover 7GB of mail server space. It’s very unlikely you’d ever \t\t\t\t\tuse 7+ GB of mail server space no matter how much email you \t\t\t\t\tsend or receive – or how many attachments you send and \t\t\t\t\treceive. Gmail is a good choice for those of you would like \t\t\t\t\tto use IMAP but whose ISP doesn’t allow you much space for \t\t\t\t\temail. You can set your Gmail account up in your email \t\t\t\t\tprogram, regardless of what email program you use. You can \t\t\t\t\talso set up Gmail on your smartphone, tablet PC or PDA. If \t\t\t\t\tyou use Gmail and IMAP all of your devices’ email programs \t\t\t\t\twill all have the same folders and messages, because those \t\t\t\t\tfolders and messages are universally available to you \t\t\t\t\tbecause they’re all on the mail server all the time. And \t\t\t\t\tdon’t forget you can set up multiple Gmail accounts and set \t\t\t\t\tthem all up in your email program and each Gmail account \t\t\t\t\tgives you 7+ GB of mail storage.<\/p>\n

If you access your mail from two or more devices, or if you \t\t\t\t\ttravel a lot, you’ll definitely be better off choosing IMAP. \t\t\t\t\tYou’ll need to make sure your ISP’s mail server supports \t\t\t\t\tIMAP and make sure your ISP isn’t living in the dark ages \t\t\t\t\tand restricting your mail storage to a measly 5 or 10 MB. If \t\t\t\t\tthey are, you’ll either need to get a Gmail account or stick \t\t\t\t\twith POP3 mail. And one other benefit of using IMAP is your \t\t\t\t\temail is always backed up. Almost all ISPs and Web Mail \t\t\t\t\tservices keep multiple backups – so the chances you’ll ever \t\t\t\t\tlose another email you wanted to save is very close to none.<\/p>\n

If you’re forced to stick with POP3, most email clients \t\t\t\t\tallow you to “leave a copy of the message on the server”. If \t\t\t\t\tyou chose this option on one computer, but not on your other \t\t\t\t\tcomputer, the other computer will download the messages and \t\t\t\t\tremove them from the server. If you checked “Leave a copy of \t\t\t\t\tmessages on the server” for all of your devices, you could \t\t\t\t\tend up downloading duplicates or triplicates of the same \t\t\t\t\tmail. And if your ISP offers you very little mail storage \t\t\t\t\tspace, your POP3 server will fill up quickly too – and mail \t\t\t\t\twill be returned to the sender with a notice that your \t\t\t\t\tmailbox is full.<\/p>\n

If your ISP support IMAP and offers a fairly generous amount \t\t\t\t\tof mail storage space, and you access your mail from several \t\t\t\t\tdevices, or you travel quite often, then IMAP is the way to \t\t\t\t\tgo. If you have one computer and you rarely travel then POP3 \t\t\t\t\tprobably will work fine for you.<\/p>\n

If you do want to set up your email account as IMAP accounts \t\t\t\t\tyou’ll find it very easy to know. Most email programs offer \t\t\t\t\thelp with setting up IMAP accounts in help files. If you \t\t\t\t\thave a Gmail account, the offer help setting up IMAP for \t\t\t\t\tmost email accounts. Login to your Gmail account and look \t\t\t\t\tunder “Accounts and Import”, “Forwarding and POP\/IMAP” \t\t\t\t\tonline.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

IMAP vs. POP3 Email Things you need to know A tip for all computer users Back in the day, if you had a desktop computer, you were lucky. You came home from work, checked your email, browsed the infant Web and maybe did a little chatting or download and turned off your computer and went to bed. Today,\u2026 Read More »<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[255,258,252,253,254,251,250,256,257],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/460"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=460"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/460\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":462,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/460\/revisions\/462"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}