What's the best way I can receive my mails today? What are the differences and benefits of POP3 and IMAP? When should you use POP3 and when IMAP? Let's start:
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.
But what do you do when you have multiple computers or multiple users who should get the email? You guess right " you use IMAP. With IMAP you're working directly ON the mail server. Your email reader usually only receives a list of your email headers from the server which saves time and bandwidth on emails you don't want to read. The result is that emails aren't stored on your local hard disk. But you can tell your email program to save a local copy, so that you're still able to work with your emails in offline state. The next benefit of IMAP is that your folder structure, which is stored on the server, is the same on every computer you access your mails. Think of a family folder for your personal mails and a work folder for your business mails.
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.
Author Resource:
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.
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