Accessing Email: IMAP or POP Which is better?

There are many different methods for delivering electronic mail. One method, called Post Office Protocol (POP), moves your email (on demand) from the central inbox to a single desktop computer. When you start a POP email program all the mail in your inbox is transferred to your desktop computer. Once that mail is forwarded, it is usually deleted from the server, and the connection between the mail server and your desktop computer is closed.

In contrast, IMAP, uses aclient-server model, in which your mail program is a client that interacts throughout a mail session with your inbox on a computer known as the mail server.

It can be a little confusing to learn about different ways to get email on your phone or in an email client such as Thunderbird or Outlook, but this breakdown of the key differences between POP and IMAP should help you decide which way to go.

There are two ways your devices and clients can communicate with your Mail server:

1. A one-way communication path (POP). Your device asks the email server for data and pulls it from the servers — but that’s it. Things you do on your device have no effect on the server.
2. A two-way communication path (IMAP). Unlike with POP, your devices talk back to our servers and sync your changes automatically with IMAP. When you sign in to your mail account in a web browser, actions you’ve taken on your email client or mobile device will also appear in your mail account. This all happens automatically once you set up IMAP, so you don’t have to read or sort all your mail twice. This is really helpful when accessing mail from multiple devices.