What is the point of IMAP?

From what I have seen of handshaking messages, my ISP supports IMAP. From
what I have read about IMAP, it offers nothing that as a single user, I
cannot have with POP3.

Leaving messages on the server: that is a setting in a POP client. Viewing
messages on the Web doesn't delete them, anyway, so later retrieval via POP
is not an issue.

Multiple users accessing emails: who wants it? Emails are supposed to be as
confidential as ordinary mail. I could read my wife's emails, but I don't.
Perhaps corporate management can spam their employees more easily. That is
about the only advantage I can think of. In the real world, what
proportion of non-spam is intended for broad distribution (except mailing
lists, of course)?

Doug.
--
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly, for you tread on my dreams.
- W.B. Yeats.

On Mar 12, 6:07 pm, Doug Laidlaw <d...@dougshost.invalid> wrote:
> From what I have seen of handshaking messages, my ISP supports IMAP. From
> what I have read about IMAP, it offers nothing that as a single user, I
> cannot have with POP3.
> [...]

<http://www.unitedhosting.net/support/faq/5.1.php>
<http://www.imap.org/imap.vs.pop.brief.html>
<http://www.clickz.com/1141651>
<http://dovecot.org/>

Doug Laidlaw <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
> From what I have seen of handshaking messages, my ISP supports IMAP. From
> what I have read about IMAP, it offers nothing that as a single user, I
> cannot have with POP3.

IMAP is probably not useful for you. Its main application is for mail
servers, allowing mail to be read from a remote computer, without downloading
the mail to an "Inbox". (The "Inbox" remains on the server.)

For a home computer installation consisting of just one computer and no
central mail server, I would recommend POP3 instead of IMAP.

Mark.

--
Mark Hobley
Linux User: #370818 http://markhobley.yi.org/

Doug Laidlaw wrote:
> From what I have seen of handshaking messages, my ISP supports IMAP. From
> what I have read about IMAP, it offers nothing that as a single user, I
> cannot have with POP3.
>
> Leaving messages on the server: that is a setting in a POP client. Viewing
> messages on the Web doesn't delete them, anyway, so later retrieval via POP
> is not an issue.
>
> Multiple users accessing emails: who wants it? Emails are supposed to be as
> confidential as ordinary mail. I could read my wife's emails, but I don't.
> Perhaps corporate management can spam their employees more easily. That is
> about the only advantage I can think of. In the real world, what
> proportion of non-spam is intended for broad distribution (except mailing
> lists, of course)?
>

With POP3, you have the choice of leaving the mail on the server, or
deleting it when you collect it. If it is only a tiny mail box, you
could leave it on the server without much problem. But for larger mail
boxes, you're going to get a lot of problems. You can't practically
delete specific mails from a POP3 client (you'd need to use the ISP's
web client, which uses IMAP to talk to the mail server). So your POP3
box builds up at the mail server.

Once your client system crashes, or you want to change PC/OS/mail
program, or you want to use a second computer, your POP3 client has to
download *everything* from the mail server. You get the joys of
watching your PC download unwanted spam for hours, only to get a hiccup
in the communication and start from scratch again.

Once you have everything downloaded again, if you are using two PC's
(say, a desktop and a laptop while travelling) for mail access, each
will download every mail, and each will present it as a new email. If
you organise emails nicely in folders and with tags in on the one PC,
you need to manually duplicate it on the other PC. If you send emails
out from one PC and want to see the sent message on the other, you need
to add yourself to the mails cc list, and download a new copy on each PC.

With IMAP, a new client setup will only download the headers - mail
bodies are downloaded only when you actually choose to read an email,
and attachments only when you choose to open or save them (of course,
clients will also support offline mode in which they download everything
in a folder - that's your choice). All changes (folders, "read" status,
tags, junk status) and sent emails are stored on the IMAP server, and
are immediately visible to all connected clients.

As you can see, IMAP is much more powerful than POP3, and is far and
away the best choice if you want to access the same email from more than
one PC (or more than one account on the same PC, or even more than one
email program on the same account). Given that most people change
computers every few years or so, but try to keep a consistent email
account, I think IMAP is the right choice in almost every situation.

In article <49ba287e$0$14980$(E-Mail Removed)>,
David Brown <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
:
:With POP3, you have the choice of leaving the mail on the server, or
:deleting it when you collect it. If it is only a tiny mail box, you
:could leave it on the server without much problem. But for larger mail
:boxes, you're going to get a lot of problems. You can't practically
:delete specific mails from a POP3 client (you'd need to use the ISP's
:web client, which uses IMAP to talk to the mail server). So your POP3
:box builds up at the mail server.

That might be a limitation of some commom POP3 clients, but "DELE 17" is
a valid POP3 command and would delete message 17 in the inbox.

And, I'd be interested to know how Comcast's web mail client uses IMAP
to talk to the server since the Comcast mail servers do not support IMAP
(and there are no plans for them to do so).

--
Bob Nichols AT comcast.net I am "RNichols42"

Robert Nichols <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
> And, I'd be interested to know how Comcast's web mail client uses
> IMAP to talk to the server since the Comcast mail servers do not
> support IMAP (and there are no plans for them to do so).

I'm not a comcast customer myself, but in theory, what comcast's
webservers can reach need not be the same as what their clients'
machines can reach directly no? POP3 facing the customer, IMAP facing
the webmail servers?

rick jones
--
portable adj, code that compiles under more than one compiler
these opinions are mine, all mine; HP might not want them anyway...
feel free to post, OR email to rick.jones2 in hp.com but NOT BOTH...

On Fri, 13 Mar 2009 12:07:16 +1100, Doug Laidlaw wrote:

> From what I have seen of handshaking messages, my ISP supports IMAP.
> From what I have read about IMAP, it offers nothing that as a single
> user, I cannot have with POP3.

One advantage ( for me anyway ) is that I can organize my messages/folders
on the server. Then, no matter what machine/client I use to connect to
mail with, I get the exact same thing as soon as I connect. No need to
download all messages, then create folders on the client, sort messages,
etc. It's already done.

If you will only ever connect with one machine, or one client, or if you
don't have/keep alot of mail or sort in many folders, this may not matter
as much. For OCD people like myself, that need that organization, and
need it to be the same, it helps to use IMAP.

--
- Matt -

Hello Doug,

last time I had to choose between POP3 and IMAP, POP3 was reported to be
safer than IMAP because IMAP was older. But this is indeed quite a long
time ago.

Doug Laidlaw wrote:

> From what I have seen of handshaking messages, my ISP supports IMAP. From
> what I have read about IMAP, it offers nothing that as a single user, I
> cannot have with POP3.
>
> Leaving messages on the server: that is a setting in a POP client.
> Viewing messages on the Web doesn't delete them, anyway, so later
> retrieval via POP is not an issue.
>
> Multiple users accessing emails: who wants it? Emails are supposed to be
> as confidential as ordinary mail.

Some example:
When you contact the support of your ISP via mail you expect some single
response, more or less immediately. And a solution to your problem as soon
as possible.

Immediate response can be provided by a some autoresponder, your problem
report usually gets routed to some IMAP mailbox as a central source for all
members of the support department. With POP3, all reactions would have to
be synchronized with the mailboxes of all members of the department or you
might get multiple conflicting reactions. IMAP has this coordination built
in.

Other examples might be
(E-Mail Removed)
(E-Mail Removed)


> I could read my wife's emails, but I
> don't. Perhaps corporate management can spam their employees more easily.

This is indeed done by aliasing (E-Mail Removed) to the members of
this department, because this is either a one-way-communication or
individual replies are intended.

Greetings from Hamburg
Torsten Kaiser

Doug Laidlaw wrote:

> From what I have seen of handshaking messages, my ISP supports IMAP. From
> what I have read about IMAP, it offers nothing that as a single user, I
> cannot have with POP3.
>
> Leaving messages on the server: that is a setting in a POP client.
> Viewing messages on the Web doesn't delete them, anyway, so later
> retrieval via POP is not an issue.
>
> Multiple users accessing emails: who wants it? Emails are supposed to be
> as
> confidential as ordinary mail. I could read my wife's emails, but I
> don't. Perhaps corporate management can spam their employees more easily.
> That is
> about the only advantage I can think of. In the real world, what
> proportion of non-spam is intended for broad distribution (except mailing
> lists, of course)?
>
> Doug.

Thanks to everybody. Another reason for not wanting IMAP:

http://techdir.rutgers.edu/imap.html

Doug.
--
I am a part of all that I have met.
- Lord Tennyson, "Ulysses."

On Mar 15, 6:49 am, Doug Laidlaw <d...@dougshost.invalid> wrote:
> Doug Laidlaw wrote:
> > From what I have seen of handshaking messages, my ISP supports IMAP. From
> > what I have read about IMAP, it offers nothing that as a single user, I
> > cannot have with POP3.
>
> > Leaving messages on the server: that is a setting in a POP client.
> > Viewing messages on the Web doesn't delete them, anyway, so later
> > retrieval via POP is not an issue.
>
> > Multiple users accessing emails: who wants it? Emails are supposed to be
> > as
> > confidential as ordinary mail. I could read my wife's emails, but I
> > don't. Perhaps corporate management can spam their employees more easily.
> > That is
> > about the only advantage I can think of. In the real world, what
> > proportion of non-spam is intended for broad distribution (except mailing
> > lists, of course)?
>
> > Doug.
>
> Thanks to everybody. Another reason for not wanting IMAP:
>
> http://techdir.rutgers.edu/imap.html

Oh? That Rutgers article is from January 1999, over 10 years
ago and has not been updated.

You also seem to have overlooked dovecot, a far superior
and secure IMAP variant whose URL I posted previously:

<http://dovecot.org/>