Managing Email Woes: IMAP vs POP

Posted May 21, 2008 By Manoj Thomas |

Keeping track of emails can be a burdening task, especially if you’re like me and have a computer for work, a laptop for when you work remotely, and maybe even a phone with emailing capabilities. Choosing the right protocol can really help you avoid an email-managing nightmare.

What’s a Protocol?

Simply put, email protocols are ways to access your emails from the server. You can easily change which protocol you use by updating account settings in your email client (like Microsoft Outlook or Mozilla Thunderbird).

All Access, Any Location

The IMAP protocol, which stands for Internet Message Access Protocol, is my personal preference since I can access and manage my emails from multiple computers without anything getting out of sync. Like other protocols, IMAP mail starts off by getting delivered to the main server, but the key difference is that it doesn’t need to be downloaded to your local computer to be viewed. Instead, you login through a mail client like Microsoft Outlook or Mozilla Thunderbird and access what you need from the server, flag messages accordingly and filter them into different folders. In essence, you’re interacting with the server to view your messages, – so later on, if you check your email from another computer, everything will remain just as you left it.

The downside to this is that checking email is dependent on your internet connectivity. If you’re on a slow connection you may notice a little lag while your email client connects to the server and tries to synchronize everything. In my opinion, though, this is only a small inconvenience when compared to everything else IMAP can offer.

I’m Sold, Configure Me!

Setting up this configuration can be done in your email client. If you run into any problems you should contact your provider since all clients are a little different and mail server settings vary. This setup is based on what we here at TradeMark Media do so be sure to replace our domain with yours:

Our outgoing server (SMTP) requires authentication so I’ll check this option and opt to use the same settings as my incoming mail server.

Keep It Simple

Only check email from 9-5? Or maybe you check it solely from your laptop? The POP protocol, short for Post Office Protocol, may then be the best route. POP email differs from IMAP in that messages are downloaded from the server to your local machine before being viewed and sorted. Once downloaded, these messages are deleted from the server and are only accessible locally (from your laptop, for example).

POP was designed to support this type of “offline” mail processing and works just fine if you’re sure you’ll be managing your emails from one machine. It’s not well-suited if there’s a chance you’ll be accessing messages from different machines at different times because you’ll quickly find out that some messages will only be available from the specific computer you initially used to view them!

That’s All I Need, Set Me Up!

Setup for a POP account is very similar to IMAP. In fact, the only item you’ll probably have to change is the Server Account Type:

Again, our outgoing server (SMTP) requires authentication so I’ll check this option and use the same settings as my incoming mail server.

Throw Your iPhone in the Mix

I recently was lucky enough to win an iPhone courtesy of OnRamp Access and their High-Tech Happy Hour. It’s my new best friend and I’ve run into a couple of times where people have asked me how I’ve configured it to check my email. Setup has been a little quirky, but here are the IMAP settings that work for me and Jean, our director of business development:

Incoming Mail Server

Outgoing Mail Server

Advanced Incoming Settings

Advanced Outgoing Settings

Managing emails can be a hefty chore, but choosing the right route to access them can save you plenty of time and anguish. A few changes to your settings can really make a difference in keeping track of all your messages all of the time.

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About the Author

Manoj Thomas is TradeMark Media's programmer. His responsibilities at TradeMark Media include integrating third-party applications and systems with client sites, PHP development.

Learn More about Manoj »

Discuss This Article

6 Responses to “Managing Email Woes: IMAP vs POP”

  1. Posted May 22nd, 2008 at 9:12 am, by Jared

    So what about those of us that are hitting an Exchange server? Any thoughts? Or should I open a trouble ticket with IT?

  2. Posted May 22nd, 2008 at 9:22 am, by Gunnar

    Good article, thanks!! I use POP with one laptop and a BlackJack. Why are messages that I first download from the server to the BlackJack then still downloaded to the laptop, and subsequently deleted from the BlackJack (but never the other way around)? By your description of POP, they should be on the cell phone, get deleted from the server after the download, and never get downloaded to the laptop later. Clearly the server is not deleting the messages after they get downloaded to the cell phone, very strange! =)

  3. Posted May 22nd, 2008 at 9:29 am, by Matt Crest

    Hey Manoj -
    Thanks for the solid overview. I’ve used POP for years, but am planning on getting iPhone v.2 – so would like to transition to IMAP (for the same reasons you mentioned). My question/concern is this: is there a decent way to transfer all the rules I have set up in my email client (Apple Mail) to an IMAP configuration without having to redefine them all?

    Not sure if you know or not, but figured I’d ask.

    Thanks.

  4. Posted May 22nd, 2008 at 9:56 am, by Nick Weynand

    Hi Jared. Your Exchange server should be able to support IMAP and POP3. You may need to ask your IT staff how to connect to a different protocol.

  5. Posted May 22nd, 2008 at 12:08 pm, by Jonathan Horak

    Gunnar, there’s a POP setting that allows messages to stay on the server for a specified time frame — BlackJacks are probably set up in this way. Your laptop’s email client, on the other hand, is configured to delete emails from the server on download.

  6. Posted May 22nd, 2008 at 3:02 pm, by Gunnar

    Ahhh that would explain it. Thanks – you guys rock!

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