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IMAP vs POP.. which is better?


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In today's world of mobility, which is better for email?

IMAP vs POP.

I traditionally use POP email with Outlook, but I have my domains forward to a GMail account for easy retreival through out the day. Would it be best to just use IMAP email for all my domains?

I know it would save space locally on my devices, and I have more than enough room on my server.

Thoughts?

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Although most email programs have a "Leave message on POP server" setting, it's nice to have your email stored remotely since it's pretty easy with POP to lose your email if your computer dies.

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IMAP, as it's a two-way communication between your email client (Outlook) and your mail servers whereas POP is only one-way.

With IMAP, everything syncs with your online mailbox. If you read an email, delete it, mark/label it, etc., it all synchronizes. With POP, nothing you do in the client synchronizes with your mailbox. So if ever you lose all your locally stored emails and have to re-import everything, all your emails will appear as unread again, uncategorised, etc.

This also means that if you have multiple clients setup (say, on your home computer, work computer and your smartphone), with IMAP when you read an email on one of your clients, it will appear as read on all of your clients.

Edit: This post on the Gmail Blog explains it pretty well: http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2008/05/getting-gmail-anywhere-imap-versus-pop.html

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IMAP. It syncs email so what you see on one device you will wee on all others. So if I send an email from my HTC then it is there on my laptop and PC too.

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Ok, I have setup all my email accounts as IMAP, but I have one further question.

In Outlook 2010, do I still need the "Outlook" folder open? Can I remove it, as to only show the configured IMAP accounts?

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How well does IMAP handle not having an internet connection at some points though? For example if a client was constantly moving between the field and their office with a laptop, would they still have offline access to their emails with IMAP?

Ok, I have setup all my email accounts as IMAP, but I have one further question.

In Outlook 2010, do I still need the "Outlook" folder open? Can I remove it, as to only show the configured IMAP accounts?

The outlook folder is a 'Personal Storage Folder'. Anything you move in to there is locally stored.

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How well does IMAP handle not having an internet connection at some points though? For example if a client was constantly moving between the field and their office with a laptop, would they still have offline access to their emails with IMAP?

Some email clients will download your email messages and make them available offline.

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IMAP hands down.

POP when you want one-way back it all up strategy for redundancy.

Yes, IMAP can be backuped, too. Like with TimeMachine on Macs, but POP gives you completely unmonitored capabilities...

Cause when a mail from 2 years ago was lost 1 year ago and you go seek it, with IMAP you're effed, even mostly with your local backup say in Time Machine, as it deleted that old backup of yours perhaps already.

POP is paranoia proof get-it-all-store-it-all.

I consider setting up a second mail client I'd run weekly to just grab a local copy of all my stuff without erroneous deletions synching! (Y)

Glassed Silver:mac

Glassed Silver:mac

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In today's world of mobility, which is better for email?

IMAP vs POP.

I traditionally use POP email with Outlook, but I have my domains forward to a GMail account for easy retreival through out the day. Would it be best to just use IMAP email for all my domains?

I know it would save space locally on my devices, and I have more than enough room on my server.

Thoughts?

Outlook has supproted both IMAP4 and POP3 since the 2007 (PC)/2008 (OS X) iterations - with the 2010 (PC)/2011 (OS X) versions adding autoconfig support for IMAP4 to the existing autoconfig for POP3/SMTP, therefore, in Outlook's case, it's largely irrelevant. The issue is one of *client storage constraints* (if any). Mobile clients (especially netbooks) lack the ability to store large amounts of e-mail (especially if they have large file attachments) - however, POP3 allows downloading of a *copy* of the mail (sans attachment) leaving a copy on the server. IMAP4, on the other hand, is an entirely server-side mail system - all files are server-resident (the lcient downloads nothing. The lower cost compared to POP3 has made IMAP4 ideal for cash-strapped institutions - such as colleges and universities; it also fits any organization that has storage-constrained clients (thin clients, netbooks, etc.). My ISP (Comcast) supports POP3, while GMail (the primary backup) supports both POP3 and IMAP4. Outlook 2010 x64 is the default client for both.

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Is this even a thing people consider? IMAP is superior is every way to POP so why would anyone actively choose it over IMAP?

Backups.

IMAP4 is entirely server-side, therefore once you delete a message in an IMAP4 mailbox, it's gone. If you need archival records - for any reason - IMAP4 is a very poor choice

It's why I have two mailboxes (with two different ISPs) - the POP3 mailbox provides no-charge archival storage, while the IMAP4 mailbox eases storage constraints and helps iwth access when NOT at my desktop.

You sound like you either administer an IMAP4 mail system and/or support a lot of mobile clients; the one thing that IS true is that mobile POP3 support is rather poor (especially in terms of Android devices); however, that isn't hte fault of POP3 (which predates IMAP4).

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IMAP... purely on the fact it's a 2-way sync, I used to hate it when I was set up with pop and I'd read an e-mail and delete it on one device and it was still there on another.

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IMAP for daily reading on pc, and mobile devices.

I use thunderbird once a month , POP to download, then copy the tb mail folder to my external harddrive. I perform this task monthly. It's also important if the mail provider is having server issues, as you'll always have a copy of the mail.

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Generally, the preference has a lot to do with your mail software.  POP3 was great for most standalone mail programs (that didn't connect to Exchange - Outlook, while designed primarily as a Microssoft Exchange client, is also an excellent POP3 client), while IMAP4 was big in education (especially public universities which to mind their budget Ps and Qs - students and staff with university-based mail typically relied on free mail programs, such as Mozilla's Thunderbird).  However, when Outlook 2010 added auto-detecting IMAP4 to their excellent (and also auto-detecting) POP3 support, for the first time, one mail client COULD do for both.  This is something I tripped over entirely by accident, mind - I had been using Outlook as my GMail client of choice from the beginning; however, I used the POP3 option (something that GMail offered from the beginning to accomodate software that lacked IMAP4 support - such as Outlook 2007 and earlier).  Further, GMail's POP3 and IMAP4 settings are decidedly non-standard - a lot of mail programs have issues with them.  (The biggest surprise is that is something that Outlook has never had - not with POP3, and not with IMAP4, either.)  I got more proof toward the end of last year when my broadband ISP - Comcast - switched mail protocols from POP3 to IMAP4; Outlook adjusted itself on-the-fly.  (I told OUtlook exactly nothing - remember, other than the protocol, nothing changed.  Same login and password information, too.)  Yet another reason I would not willingly use any mail software other than Outlook.  It's that good.

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