IMAP or POP3 ” What Should I Take?

As long as I can think, I usually set up my email client on my computer, entered my login credentials and received my mails. When I got my laptop and started working in an office, some questions arouse. How should I receive my mails on all computers? Ahh yes ” I decided that the place, where I finally need ALL my mails is the office. Therefore I enabled the checkbox in my email reader beside Leave messages on server on my home computer and my laptop. I was now able to receive my mails at home and on the road with my laptop and got them all in the office, too. But there was this thing in my mind called IMAP which didn’t let me sleep. Probably I should take a look on this and see if this is the better way of handling my emails. So what are the differences and benefits of POP3 and IMAP? When should you use POP3 and when IMAP? Here we go:

The POP3 setup. After you’ve entered your account credentials like your login name and password you need to make your first decision. Do you want to leave all received messages on the server or not. When you leave the message on the server, your account may run out of space after some time. When you delete emails after receipt from the server you can’t get it on a different computer again. So, when you’re working on only one single computer, it’s better to delete mails from server immediately after you’ve downloaded them. With POP3 every received mail is stored on your local hard disk. Therefore it’s no problem to read it when you have no internet connection.

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.

So what should you take now? When you’re just working with a single computer POP3 should fit your needs. Make sure to turn on the deletion of emails after receipt, so that your mail account won’t run out of space. As your mails are stored locally you can work with them even without an internet connection.

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 team scheduling software. soft-evolution is developer of Pimero an Personal Information Manager which addresses the needs of small and mid-sized companies.