Comments on: What Is POP & IMAP & Which One Should You Use For Your Email?

By: coconut

coconut — Wed, 05 Dec 2012 21:50:37 +0000

Hi, I found a solution for this. When you add a new gmail account to mail, use first a fake email address, so it doesn’t configure automatically as IMAP. After that you can manually setup your gmail account using POP3 settings

By: susendeep dutta

susendeep dutta — Sat, 24 Nov 2012 15:59:16 +0000

I mean to say that Mozilla would never release any new version of Thunderbird and would release hotfix for current version.

By: Tor

Tor — Fri, 23 Nov 2012 22:37:40 +0000

Mozilla have not stopped development of Thunderbird! Where did you hear that?

By: Jimmy Dee

Jimmy Dee — Thu, 15 Nov 2012 05:23:52 +0000

Actually, the default for Outlook is to leave the email on the server for 14 days.

Terrible for active accounts with small boxes on older email systems (especially commercial accounts), but still a sensible precaution.

In our office, we use 2-4 days depending on the usage profile of the user. That gives 24 hours of backup… Our .pst files are also backed up here every 24 hours, so that’s safe.

POP3 is better for smaller email accounts. IMAP is better for modern accounts.

POP3 is better for very high activity accounts (the boss here gets 1000-2000 emails a day and is not at all diligent about organizing and archiving… his .pst backup is nearly 500gb).

POP3 encourages bad recoverability policies. Most POP3 users store everything in a single file on a single hard drive unless there is adequate tech staff (that they listen to). IMAP by nature is safer against hardware failure, and if it fills up, instead of automatically slicing itself up, requires specific action by the user to organize and archive properly.

IMAP is better for redundancy as well for users who do not have a backup solution in place, but have information they want/need backed up.

IMAP has a higher security risk, but this is not really significant and is usually overplayed by “techies”. Information that is genuinely sensitive is usually kept to protected servers and internal mail domains. Otherwise, good password policies are usually adequate.

By: Tina

Tina — Fri, 14 Sep 2012 05:58:50 +0000

David,

Now that I’m happy with my webmail setup, I’m reluctant to keep a desktop client up to date and have it download my email. It would take up tons of hard drive space and some resources and I don’t have a need for this redundancy.

By: Tina

Tina — Fri, 14 Sep 2012 05:56:45 +0000

Pat,

If the client allows you to leave the messages on the server when using POP, then that means you’re getting the best of both worlds. As far as I know it’s not a standard feature, so it’s not available to everyone. However, I did come across this option and should have mentioned it. Thanks for bringing it up!

By: Pat Wiegand

Pat Wiegand — Thu, 13 Sep 2012 13:25:57 +0000

I also use POP because I often need to access my emails when I have limited access to the internet while traveling. With POP I can quickly download via a phone tether or pay-by-time internet at an airport then drop the connection and peruse the emails, write replies, etc. at my leisure without an internet connection. When I’m done, jump back on the internet and hit send/receive and then I can drop off again. With IMAP you would have to be connected to the internet all the time. Expensive when you are traveling.

By: Pat Wiegand

Pat Wiegand — Thu, 13 Sep 2012 13:20:37 +0000

Really? Seems a bit harsh — there are a lot of fine email clients out there. Even the basic Outlook is very stable — I’ve never had a problem with it.

By: Pat Wiegand

Pat Wiegand — Thu, 13 Sep 2012 13:17:31 +0000

Actually, this is the one complaint I have about Tina’s article. I use POP3 on multiple devices all the time. Just set the email client to leave the mail on the server for a specified number of days or until it is deleted from the deleted items folder. I have 3 computers and a phone that all receive mail via POP. When sending email if you want to keep it synced among all computers, just blind copy yourself and you will have sent mail synchronized as well.

By: Pat Wiegand

Pat Wiegand — Thu, 13 Sep 2012 13:13:56 +0000

Any decent email client will allow you to search your mails delivered by POP3, and you don’t need to be connected to the internet to do it. Not saying this makes POP3 better overall, just adding clarity to your statement.

By: Kelliann

Kelliann — Tue, 04 Sep 2012 04:56:22 +0000

I use POP, I do have one imap account, using iCloud with it. There is a delay before mail I send or move comes back to me. I find that annoying. I have no reason to need imap… I set up that account after my hard drive crashed so it could collect incoming mail. I told most users I email with that I had a temporary email address (xxx@me.com) I was able to read my mail on my iPhone. Meantime, my ISP was collecting other email on their servers and to see that mail, I used webmail temporarily.When it all got straightened out, I had Windows Mail. not Windows Live Mail, running. I started writing to everyone from my older address and when they replied, they replied to it. I am now very happily back to POP3 mail which I can keep on my computer. If I need to access webmail messages, I just go to my ISPs site and access it from there from any location with any device I happen to have. I have a PC with Windows 7, by the way, not a Mac.

By: Edgar Meixueiro

Edgar Meixueiro — Thu, 23 Aug 2012 23:22:32 +0000

I personally like imap. Unfortunately I have both a gmail and hotmail account. And hotmail only supports pop option.

By: Benjamin Glass

Benjamin Glass — Tue, 21 Aug 2012 15:27:31 +0000

I’ll use IMAP from now on.

By: Tina

Tina — Mon, 20 Aug 2012 18:40:34 +0000

Hold on to your question, Aaron! :)

By: Tina

Tina — Mon, 20 Aug 2012 18:40:23 +0000

Yes, if you lose your local copy of emails downloaded with classical POP, then it’s gone, unless you had a local backup that you made yourself.

Note that when using IMAP, if you delete emails locally, they will also be deleted on the server – changes made locally are synced to the server.

With most accounts, you can opt to keep mails stored on the server, although downloading with POP. So maybe that is the best option if available.