My Prosperous World

How should I receive my mails today? Should I user POP3 or better IMAP? What are my options and what are the differences and benefits? When should you use POP3 and when IMAP?

POP3 is easier to set up. When you receive a message you can choose to leave it on the server or to delete it. When you leave it on the server, your email account may run out of space after time, so you have to take care of this. When you delete it from the server you don’t have the chance to get it again on a different machine. This is perfect, when you’re the only one who needs to read the email and you’re working only with one computer. The email is automatically stored on your local hard drive and you can read it even without a connection to your mail server.

When you have several computers or you have to ensure that multiple users should get an email, IMAP is the better way. With IMAP all messages are stored and managed directly ON the server. Email readers only receive a list of your email headers from the server saving time and bandwidth on emails you don’t want to read for whatever reason. By default emails aren’t stored on your local hard drive. When you want to read them offline, you need to set this in your email reader’s settings. An additional benefit of IMAP is that your email folder structure is the same on every computer. For instance, when you’ve set up a folder called family for family emails, and business for all emails of your business contacts, these directories will always be there in your email reader ” regardless on which computer you access your email account.

Which email protocol should you finally take? When you’re working on only one PC, then POP3 is the right one. Remember to delete emails from time to time, so that your mail account can’t run out of space. Alternatively you can set your email program to delete every mail automatically after receipt.

You should consider using IMAP when you’re working with more than one computer or other people need to get the email, too. When you need to work offline, make sure to store a local copy of your email. To not let the mail server’s space run full, you need to delete or backup mails on the server from time to time.

Dominik writes for soft-evolution, a software vendor, specialized on personal information managing software. soft-evolution is developer of theOutlook Alternative Pimero, which addresses the needs of small and mid-sized companies.