Emails – POP3 or IMAP?
Almost everyone uses email nowadays. It has become a part of everyday
communications and we wonder how we managed when we had to write
a letter and wait for its delivery. Often when we are setting up email on our
new computer or Smartphone we can be faced with questions which we do
not understand, often because of the terminology used, and so we either
give up or are forced to get help. This short article deals with two of these
terms which you need to have some understanding of: POP3 and IMAP.
Their meanings are explained as we cover each of them.
In the early days of emails it was important to define a system which all the companies involved in
the new technology could agree to and which would allow an email sent by one program to be read
by a different program. The method for sending emails that was agreed upon was called ‘Simple
Message Transfer Protocol’ (SMTP). This is more or less standard and requires no real setting
up. When receiving emails the first system used was called ‘Post Office Protocol’ (POP). This was
the leader for many years and it is now it is on its third version (POP3). More recently, ‘Internet
Message Access Protocol’ (IMAP) has become dominant and it is the difference between these two
which needs the most understanding.
If you set up your email to use POP3, received emails will be downloaded to your PC or
Smartphone etc and generally by default they will be deleted from the server once they are
downloaded. Some email programs allow you to prevent this deletion and leave a copy on the
server. In the case of Microsoft Office Outlook you can choose to delete messages on the server,
either when they are downloaded, after so many days or when they are de