How
you use your e-mail determines whether you need the power
of IMAP or just a POP account.
Back
to Web Hosting Articles
What is the difference between an IMAP and a POP mail account?
Without going into all of the technical aspects between the two
here is the simple version. Both IMAP and POP are different
protocols for handling e-mail. What is meant by protocol is
that IMAP deals with e-mail in a different way than POP does.
Let’s explore what each does.
POP stands for Post Office Protocol. POP is very
simple. When the the POP e-mail server receives an e-mail it
stores that e-mail
on the server and waits you to request it. You request the e-mail
from the server when you open your e-mail program (e.g., Outlook)
and hit the Send/Receive button. When you press the Send/Receive
button your e-mail program says to the server “do you have
any mail? If yes, send it to me.” When the POP server receives
this request from your e-mail program it sends the entire message
to your e-mail program. Once the POP server has sent the e-mail
to your e-mail program it does not have the message on the server
anymore unless you specifically tell it to keep a copy. POP is
basically a flow through entity—it just passes on the information
to you at your e-mail program. This is different from IMAP which
is interactive with your e-mail program.
IMAP stands for Internet Message Access Protocol. What IMAP does
is that it allows you to download e-mails from the server to
your e-mail program on your computer the same as POP. However,
what IMAP does differently than POP is that when you request
your e-mail from the server it sends you a copy from the server
rather than sending you the entire e-mail. IMAP keeps a copy
of the e-mail on the server while you have a copy on your computer.
The natural question which arises is what happens if I have certain
messages on my local computer and IMAP has different messages
on the IMAP mail server? Well, IMAP is intelligent. When you
connect with the IMAP mail server with your local computer IMAP
senses that there are differences between the two and synchronizes
the two so that they have the same information. For example,
if you have deleted some messages and are composing some more
and have sent some others this information will be synced up
with the IMAP server so the IMAP server will delete the copies
of the messages you deleted. It makes it so by the time you log
off with the IMAP server you have two complete copies of all
of your e-mail functions: one on the IMAP server and one on your
local computer.
So what are the advantages of these? POP is relatively straight
forward. It is also faster in that it just sends you your e-mails
and gets e-mails from you. The downside is that if you lose e-mails
on your computer you have lost them forever (unless you have
saved a copy on the server). IMAP is slower but more redundant.
It is going to keep a copy of everything you do on the server.
This is going to take up more space but if you really need your
e-mail then you may want to consider this option.
|
