IMAP vs. POP: Which one should you choose?

When configuring an email client (Mail.app, Thunderbird, Outlook, etc.) to access your brazoslink email, you have to decide whether to configure the account as an IMAP or POP account. The intent of this short article is to help you decide which type is best for your use.

POP stands for Post Office Protocol and is a simple set of instructions that let your computer retrieve messages from the brazoslink mail server. After authenticating the request with the user's password, the POP protocol asks the server if there is any new mail, and if your mailbox on the server has messages, then POP usually downloads them to your computer and deletes them off the server.

IMAP stands for Internet Mail Access Protocol and allows a "client" email program to access a message stored at a remote location as if they were on the local computer. Email stored on an IMAP server can be manipulated from a desktop computer at home, a workstation at the office, a notebook computer while traveling, and a smartphone, without the need to transfer messages or files back and forth between these devices.

Generally, you want to use POP if you access your mail from one computer or device, and IMAP if you need to manipulate your mail from multiple devices.

POP service:

• POP was designed for, and works best in, the situation where you use only a single computer or device to read and send email.
• Normally, messages are downloaded to your desktop computer and then deleted from the mail server.
• If you choose to work with your POP mail on more than one machine, you may have trouble with email messages getting downloaded on one machine that you need to work with on another machine; for example, you may need a message at work that was downloaded to your machine at home.
• If you choose the POP option "keep mail on server", your POP "inbox" can grow large and unwieldy, and email operations can become inefficient and time-consuming.
• Your archive of mail, if you have one, is kept on your device -- you generally need little storage space on the mail server, but if your hard drive crashes and you don't have a backup, you lose all of your email.

IMAP service:

• IMAP is designed for the situation where you need to work with your email from multiple computers, such as your workstation at work, your desktop computer at home, or a laptop computer while traveling.
• Messages are displayed on your local computer but are kept and stored on the mail server -- you can work with all your mail, old and new, from any device connected to the internet.
• You can create subfolders on the mail server to organize the mail you want to keep. However, these subfolders, as well as its contents, work against your total email quota (initially 100MB for security reasons, but expandable upon request).
• Your email is backed up on the server, though you can keep archive copies on your local device as well.

How do I know if I should use IMAP or POP?

Choose IMAP if you need access to your email, new and old, on multiple devices, e.g., office PC, home computer, smartphone, etc.

Choose POP if you work with your email in a single location or on a single computer.