[Thumannator]

I started my foray into OS X with 10.1.5, and back then .mac was still iTools and Mail.app had two account options: POP and IMAP. Lately, while modifying some preferences, I notice that there is a "new" accout type identified as ".mac" and I wondered what this option does? As I have everything set now, my .mac account is set up as POP, and I cannot change the account type to .mac (dimmed out, not selectable). Really though, I am just wondering what the difference is? If I set up a new account as a .mac account, what will it do differently from POP or IMAP?

Thanks

[Turias]

I believe that all it does is automatically throw together an IMAP account for .Mac mail. It makes it more "user-friendly" to have a .Mac account.

[CatOne]

A .mac account is just an IMAP account, with a blue globe instead of a grey one ;-)

Of course because it's .Mac, Apple can fill in some extra info for you -- the mail server can be auto-populated and you don't need to manually enter it because they already know the info.

But you can do POP or IMAP access to .Mac just as easily as using the built-in type.