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Which e-mail protocol should I use, POP or IMAP?

POP and IMAP
Modwest allows users to access their email using either POP (Post Office Protocal) or IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol). Most modern email clients (Outlook, Entourage, Thunderbird, and Apple Mail) support both of these protocols. This article will cover the advantages and disadvantages of both.

We advise that you do not use both IMAP and POP to access the same mailbox. If a mailbox is accessed at the same time via the two protocols, it may cause unexpected and undesirable results.

POP (POP3)
The advantages:

POP is somewhat simpler to manage. If you see a message, it is on your computer.
You can view all of your messages even if you are not connected to the internet.
More software supports the POP protocol.

The disadvantages:

If you download a message it is only available on that computer.
You cannot access your account if someone else is accessing it at the same time.

POP is often best if you are only going to view the messages from a single computer and your Internet connection is not always available.
Instructions for configuring Outlook Express using POP that include pictures and screenshots.
Instructions for configuring Entourage 2004 using POP that include pictures and screenshots.

IMAP
The advantages:

Messages reside on the mail server. Therefore:
- You can view these messages from any computer with your web browser.
- If selected, we create archival backups of these messages daily.
You can move messages from one IMAP account to another IMAP account, or from the mail server to your personal computer.

The disadvantages:

Unless you move messages to your local computer, you can only view your messages while connected to the internet.
Storing messages on the server will use some of your hosting disk space.

User-Contributed Notes
There are no user-contributed notes for this topic.

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