[besson3c]

There are a *lot* of threads about the differences between POP and IMAP. We can use this thread for clarifying these differences if you like, but I would also like to lay out the bottom line here, FWIW...

POP is an archaic and really sucky protocol. It is absolutely brain dead and does not belong in the modern email world. Many email providers offer it because it is cheaper for them, but POP is really sucky. If you have access to an IMAP account, run, don't walk to switching your email over to IMAP.

In a POP account, mail is downloaded to your computer. It is up to your mail client to organize your email once it has been downloaded. It lives on your computer and dies on your computer (unless you have it backed up). POP knows nothing about the folders you have on your Mac, and there is no way to upload mail back to your POP account.

Contrast this to IMAP where your messages live on a server, as to your folders, message flags, and everything else. Many clients offer you the option of storing some mail on your own computer (since many IMAP accounts have disk usage quotas), but overall the wisest strategy is to leave as much mail on the server as you can. You can access your IMAP account from any client that supports IMAP (including web based email clients), and in doing so you are simply viewing and manipulating mail that lives on the server. Therefore, an IMAP account is much more portable than a POP account.

The problems with POP:

- If your machine dies, your mail dies along with it (unless you have a backup), as mentioned

- POP does not work well with webmail systems, as mentioned. You are not portable with a POP account

- If you use an email program with a proprietary mail store (such as a Microsoft email program), it can be very hard to get your email out of the program and to recreate your setup in another app while properly preserving all mail data such as message flags. In an IMAP account, all of this stuff lives on the server - you are not locked in to any mail system. Freedom is bliss.

- Secure authentication is relatively uncommon among POP accounts. You want to avoid authenticating in the clear (i.e. unencrypted) as much as you can

- POP accounts do not support many server side mail filters

[Laminar]

As soon as Gmail introduced IMAP, I switched over. Even before, though, I just had Gmail archive the mail after Mail.app gets it, so I have all of my email available on the server from anywhere.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by Laminar 

As soon as Gmail introduced IMAP, I switched over. Even before, though, I just had Gmail archive the mail after Mail.app gets it, so I have all of my email available on the server from anywhere.

Yeah, but just be prepared for the day that you ever need to redownload these messages from the server and the fact that all of your message flags (e.g. new/seen, replied to/forwarded, etc.) will be gone.

[Dork.]

Let's take Gmail, for example. Why is using Gmail with IMAP any different than using it with POP, but leaving your main on the server after popping it? In both cases, you have copies of your E-mail on the server, but when you pop your E-mail, you have a copy on your local machine as well....

[mdc]

Dork. If you have more than one device checking the email IMAP is so much better than POP.

Say you have your Mac and an iPhone checking your account. They will each download a copy of the message to themselves and you'll have to mark them read on both devices. If you send mail on one device it won't show up sent on the other, same for deleting messages, flagging, etc.

If you are doing this over IMAP and make a change, the change is reflected on any other devices that are checking the same account.

[Dork.]

I get it. I usually use the web interface to Gmail when I'm not on my Powerbook, and I do have to deal with mail being flagged as unread in both places. Maybe I'll experiment with it soon....

[abe]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

There are a *lot* of threads about the differences between POP and IMAP. We can use this thread for clarifying these differences if you like, but I would also like to lay out the bottom line here, FWIW...

POP is an archaic and really sucky protocol. It is absolutely brain dead and does not belong in the modern email world. Many email providers offer it because it is cheaper for them, but POP is really sucky. If you have access to an IMAP account, run, don't walk to switching your email over to IMAP.

In a POP account, mail is downloaded to your computer. It is up to your mail client to organize your email once it has been downloaded. It lives on your computer and dies on your computer (unless you have it backed up). POP knows nothing about the folders you have on your Mac, and there is no way to upload mail back to your POP account.

Contrast this to IMAP where your messages live on a server, as to your folders, message flags, and everything else. Many clients offer you the option of storing some mail on your own computer (since many IMAP accounts have disk usage quotas), but overall the wisest strategy is to leave as much mail on the server as you can. You can access your IMAP account from any client that supports IMAP (including web based email clients), and in doing so you are simply viewing and manipulating mail that lives on the server. Therefore, an IMAP account is much more portable than a POP account.

The problems with POP:

- If your machine dies, your mail dies along with it (unless you have a backup), as mentioned

- POP does not work well with webmail systems, as mentioned. You are not portable with a POP account

- If you use an email program with a proprietary mail store (such as a Microsoft email program), it can be very hard to get your email out of the program and to recreate your setup in another app while properly preserving all mail data such as message flags. In an IMAP account, all of this stuff lives on the server - you are not locked in to any mail system. Freedom is bliss.

- Secure authentication is relatively uncommon among POP accounts. You want to avoid authenticating in the clear (i.e. unencrypted) as much as you can

- POP accounts do not support many server side mail filters

Thanks for the advice. This is good info to have!

[Dork.]

And I commend you for not calling it a POOP account, not even once!

[Chuckit]

IMAP would be great if I had totally unlimited server space and there were never more than one person using any account.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by Dork. 

Let's take Gmail, for example. Why is using Gmail with IMAP any different than using it with POP, but leaving your main on the server after popping it? In both cases, you have copies of your E-mail on the server, but when you pop your E-mail, you have a copy on your local machine as well....

Because any message flags you set on particular messages will not be redownloaded should you ever download these messages again, and because it is difficult to delete messages you may actually want to delete from the server this way...

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by Chuckit 

IMAP would be great if I had totally unlimited server space and there were never more than one person using any account.

It's not that hard to set yourself up with your own server... Even if it is not your primary email source, you could use it for archiving older mail to free up disk space.

Don't understand your second comment and why that wouldn't apply to POP as well (although IMAP does put a greater load on the server, if that's what you mean)

[pooka]

I dunno man. I wish I could agree. Working with freaky ass designers though that insist on emailing 9 meg PSD files back and forth is too much of a hassle. I'd rather them use POP and keep that crap on their machine. I'd have to get 8TB of space to keep up with the **** they do.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by pooka 

I dunno man. I wish I could agree. Working with freaky ass designers though that insist on emailing 9 meg PSD files back and forth is too much of a hassle. I'd rather them use POP and keep that crap on their machine. I'd have to get 8TB of space to keep up with the **** they do.

No you won't, as the most common SMTP server configuration is to limit attachments to 10 megabytes anyway, and in order to go above this both sending and receiving servers have to be configured accordingly to prevent a bounce/rejection. Those 9 meg images are right on the cusp of being acceptable. Regardless, after you download them for the first them they should be cached, unless you've configured your mail client not to. Of course, if you have a disk quota all of this is a nuisance...

You could set yourself up with a rule to transfer messages from your designers to a local folder and to delete teh message off the server after doing so

[starman]

So many things wrong with your post. If you know how to handle POP, it's fine.

but overall the wisest strategy is to leave as much mail on the server as you can.

Wrong. I don't trust my ISP to do jack sh*t, and neither should anyone else. I only trust one thing - my own backups.

- If your machine dies, your mail dies along with it (unless you have a backup), as mentioned

Yeah, well, if you have 16 years of email like I do, across God knows how may ISPs, I seriously doubt any ISP is going to handle that much for you anyway. Yeah, my email stays on my computer and gets backed up all the time. With IMAP, I'd have to do the same anyway.

And what if your ISP's server dies?

- POP does not work well with webmail systems, as mentioned. You are not portable with a POP account

Wrong. I do it every day.

- If you use an email program with a proprietary mail store (such as a Microsoft email program), it can be very hard to get your email out of the program and to recreate your setup in another app while properly preserving all mail data such as message flags. In an IMAP account, all of this stuff lives on the server - you are not locked in to any mail system. Freedom is bliss.

But if you know what you're doing, it's not hard at all. You still have to enter basic information.

- Secure authentication is relatively uncommon among POP accounts. You want to avoid authenticating in the clear (i.e. unencrypted) as much as you can

Which I do. Secure all the time.

- POP accounts do not support many server side mail filters

Which I don't like.

The "bottom line" is that I do agree POP is ancient, but it works.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by starman 

So many things wrong with your post. If you know how to handle POP, it's fine.



Yeah, well, if you have 16 years of email like I do, I seriously doubt any ISP is going to handle that much for you anyway. Yeah, my email stays on my computer and gets backed up all the time. With IMAP, I'd have to do the same anyway.

Who is your email provider? Unless you are with a free IMAP provider, they are responsible for keeping your data secure and backed up, no?

And what if your ISP's server dies?

See above... any good ISP should have backups.

Wrong. I do it every day.

Yeah, by leaving a copy on the server, if you don't care about having consistent message flags retained across all email clients. I don't see the point here...

But if you know what you're doing, it's not hard at all. You still have to enter basic information.

I don't understand what you are getting at... This is left up to the client vendor to provide an API for accessing email in their data store. If they use a common mailbox format like mbox or Maildir, you are set, but some clients (such as Microsoft clients) use a proprietary format.

Which I don't like.

Why not?

And what was wrong about anything I posted?

[Cold Warrior]

Sorry, but I get too much email with too many huge attachments for IMAP to be viable. And it's a pain in the ass if I move some big messages off, but leave others on -- then I'm missing large parts of conversations and instructions.

Email has to come off the server, based on my needs.

[starman]

Essentially what you posted was "IMAP rules, POP sucks", but the fact is that both have strengths and weaknesses. Neither are perfect.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by starman 

Essentially what you posted was "IMAP rules, POP sucks", but the fact is that both have strengths and weaknesses. Neither are perfect.

I disagree. Nothing is perfect, but IMAP is vastly superior to POP in design. If disk quotas are the only weakness of IMAP, this is an issue of policy, not of technology.

[Chuckit]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

It's not that hard to set yourself up with your own server... Even if it is not your primary email source, you could use it for archiving older mail to free up disk space.

Well, yeah, but it's also not that hard to choose POP instead of IMAP and get the behavior for free.

Originally Posted by besson3c 

Don't understand your second comment and why that wouldn't apply to POP as well (although IMAP does put a greater load on the server, if that's what you mean)

There are three ladies at the office here who all get mail from the same public-comments mailbox. If I had them access this mailbox through IMAP, when one deleted the letter, the others would all suddenly not be able to see it either. Lots of places I've been have similar situations.

[starman]

I don't see POP as "vastly superior" at all.

As Chuck stated, a lot of things can go wrong with IMAP.

Of course, things can go wrong with POP. That's why I think neither are perfect because neither cater to everyone's quirks about how email should be handled.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by Chuckit 

Well, yeah, but it's also not that hard to choose POP instead of IMAP and get the behavior for free.


There are three ladies at the office here who all get mail from the same public-comments mailbox. If I had them access this mailbox through IMAP, when one deleted the letter, the others would all suddenly not be able to see it either. Lots of places I've been have similar situations.

So how would this work with POP?

The proper way of handling this is with a shared mailbox and only allowing the owner delete permissions. Of course, you can't do this with POP.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by starman 

I don't see POP as "vastly superior" at all.

As Chuck stated, a lot of things can go wrong with IMAP.

Of course, things can go wrong with POP. That's why I think neither are perfect because neither cater to everyone's quirks about how email should be handled.

I've yet to hear a valid design disadvantage IMAP has over POP. The only real (and legitimate) concern is disk space, but again this is not a technological issue, but a policy issue.

[starman]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

So how would this work with POP?

The proper way of handling this is with a shared mailbox and only allowing the owner delete permissions. Of course, you can't do this with POP.

Easy.

"delete this after X days"

Done.

[starman]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

I've yet to hear a valid design disadvantage IMAP has over POP. The only real (and legitimate) concern is disk space, but again this is not a technological issue, but a policy issue.

I already stated one and Chuck stated one.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by starman 

Easy.

"delete this after X days"

Done.

A mail rule, which you could setup in either. What's your point?

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by starman 

I already stated one and Chuck stated one.

The operative word here is "valid". Make your case.

[Chuckit]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

So how would this work with POP?

Uh…they each have their own copy of the message to get information from at their leisure without having to worry about somebody else making it vanish out from under them?

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by Chuckit 

Uh…they each have their own copy of the message to get information from at their leisure without having to worry about somebody else making it vanish out from under them?

So you send them each their own copy? Why couldn't you do that with separate IMAP accounts, or even better, with a shared mailbox?

[starman]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

The operative word here is "valid". Make your case.

No, I think the operative term is "your opinion".

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by starman 

No, I think the operative term is "your opinion".

Quite possibly, I'm open to the possibility of being wrong... I just don't see how I am though, so I urge you to make your case.

[starman]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

Quite possibly, I'm open to the possibility of being wrong... I just don't see how I am though, so I urge you to make your case.

Yay. 7 more pages.

[Chuckit]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

So you send them each their own copy?

No, they each download the message off the server and then they have their own copy. I don't have to do anything. That's just how POP works.

Originally Posted by besson3c 

Why couldn't you do that with separate IMAP accounts, or even better, with a shared mailbox?

It is a shared mailbox.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by Chuckit 

No, they each download the message off the server and then they have their own copy. I don't have to do anything. That's just how POP works.


It is a shared mailbox.

I see what you mean... Sort of like turning the POP account into an RSS reader or something. I guess this makes sense.

For the record, by shared mailbox I meant one that can be available in any account on that server without needing the account password (i.e. an IMAP shared mailbox).

[G Barnett]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

In a POP account, mail is downloaded to your computer. It is up to your mail client to organize your email once it has been downloaded. It lives on your computer and dies on your computer (unless you have it backed up). POP knows nothing about the folders you have on your Mac, and there is no way to upload mail back to your POP account.

The problems with POP:

- If your machine dies, your mail dies along with it (unless you have a backup), as mentioned

- POP does not work well with webmail systems, as mentioned. You are not portable with a POP account

Oddly enough, I tend to view these as advantages for POP mail. I don't want my email stored on a server somewhere, I don't use webmail accounts and I don't care at all about portability.

Also, where I have my main e-mail account, I discovered quite a while back they have no way to actually disable a POP-account, so I've got it for life (it had been tied to my old DSL account and did not go away when I cancelled it -- I'd called to tell them it was still active and found out there's no way to put an order in to cancel it).

Free POP in perpetuity is quite a nice thing, really.

[Mastrap]

POP works just fine with webmail btw.

I like IMAP, but I much rather have my own reliable backups than rely on my service provider.

[Dork.]

Originally Posted by G Barnett 

Also, where I have my main e-mail account, I discovered quite a while back they have no way to actually disable a POP-account, so I've got it for life (it had been tied to my old DSL account and did not go away when I cancelled it -- I'd called to tell them it was still active and found out there's no way to put an order in to cancel it).

Free POP in perpetuity is quite a nice thing, really.

I've noticed the same thing too, but figured it was just bad bookkeeping on their end. Why in the world would they not be able to cancel it? You'd figure at the very least, they'd be able to forward all the mail to /dev/null to keep from having to store it. They are root, after all, and ought to be able to change stuff like that.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by Mastrap 

POP works just fine with webmail btw.

I like IMAP, but I much rather have my own reliable backups than rely on my service provider.

POP will work with webmail, but your message flags will be out of sync.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by Dork. 

I've noticed the same thing too, but figured it was just bad bookkeeping on their end. Why in the world would they not be able to cancel it? You'd figure at the very least, they'd be able to forward all the mail to /dev/null to keep from having to store it. They are root, after all, and ought to be able to change stuff like that.

Sure they could, I guess they just haven't developed automated tools to do this and don't want to do this manually.

[PaperNotes]

It looks like besson hasn't used gmail with pop. Even before imap it did filtering, spam blocking, archiving etc

[turtle777]

Originally Posted by starman 

Essentially what you posted was "IMAP rules, POP sucks", but the fact is that both have strengths and weaknesses. Neither are perfect.

Originally Posted by besson3c 

I disagree. Nothing is perfect, but IMAP is vastly superior to POP in design. If disk quotas are the only weakness of IMAP, this is an issue of policy, not of technology.

Originally Posted by starman 

I already stated one and Chuck stated one.

Originally Posted by besson3c 

The operative word here is "valid". Make your case.

Originally Posted by starman 

No, I think the operative term is "your opinion".

Starman, this (your argument) is retarded.

Besson: "What is ONE single point showing that POP is superior to IMAP ?"

Starman: "Well, POP can do this and that."

Besson: "IMAP can do this as well. Not a VALID point of superiority."

Starman: "Bla bla, your opinion !"

WTF, dude

-t

[Oisín]

I guess this is as good a place as any to ask:

My school e-mail (which I have to use for all things school-related) has a storage limit of 50 MB. That’s not a lot.

They use SquirrelMail to manage the webmail system, and they’ve turned this ‘flagging’ thing on, so that when you delete an e-mail, it only marks it with a “+D”, and you have to manually expunge your inbox to actually remove the e-mail. They offer only IMAP, no POP.

Now, when I download my e-mails in Thunderbird, I delete a lot of bulk mail I receive immediately. But when I delete them in Thunderbird, they’re only marked “+D”, not actually deleted. Is there any way to actually delete (and expunge) these e-mails directly from Thunderbird? It’s a bit of a pain having to go and expunge my inbox using the webmail interface, when the reason I’m using Thunderbird is exactly to avoid using the webmail interface.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by PaperNotes 

It looks like besson hasn't used gmail with pop. Even before imap it did filtering, spam blocking, archiving etc

I'm sure it did, those are all client operations, not protocol dependent.

[Chuckit]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

For the record, by shared mailbox I meant one that can be available in any account on that server without needing the account password (i.e. an IMAP shared mailbox).

Wouldn't that fail to meet the requirement that everybody gets to keep a message until they want to get rid of it?

BTW, Oisin: I think Thunderbird has some message like Erase Deleted or Empty Trash or something. Does that do what you need?

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by Oisín 

I guess this is as good a place as any to ask:

My school e-mail (which I have to use for all things school-related) has a storage limit of 50 MB. That’s not a lot.

They use SquirrelMail to manage the webmail system, and they’ve turned this ‘flagging’ thing on, so that when you delete an e-mail, it only marks it with a “+D”, and you have to manually expunge your inbox to actually remove the e-mail. They offer only IMAP, no POP.

Now, when I download my e-mails in Thunderbird, I delete a lot of bulk mail I receive immediately. But when I delete them in Thunderbird, they’re only marked “+D”, not actually deleted. Is there any way to actually delete (and expunge) these e-mails directly from Thunderbird? It’s a bit of a pain having to go and expunge my inbox using the webmail interface, when the reason I’m using Thunderbird is exactly to avoid using the webmail interface.

The reason why your school doesn't use trash mailboxes is because messages in your trash count against your quota, and most people don't understand that they have to empty their trash, this creates confusion. By doing the two-step delete (mark for delete, expunge), this makes things a little clearer.

In Thunderbird the way to delete items marked for deletion is via "compact mailbox". There is a nice add on that I use that gives you an expunge button in your toolbar for easy access. I can dig up the URL to it if you want.

Hope this helps!

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by Chuckit 

Wouldn't that fail to meet the requirement that everybody gets to keep a message until they want to get rid of it?

BTW, Oisin: I think Thunderbird has some message like Erase Deleted or Empty Trash or something. Does that do what you need?

Empty Trash is the command used for when you are using a Trash mailbox... There are two ways to delete:

1) Trash mailbox, empty trash periodically (e.g. when you quit your client)
2) Mark for delete then purge/expunge (compact folders in Tbird, "erase deleted messages" in OS X Mail)


As for everybody keeping a copy, generally speaking the best way to work with shared mailboxes is not to delete anything but spam, and leave it up to each person accessing the mailbox to set their own message flags on messages they have seen or not seen. Then, the mailbox would be periodically turned over/archived at the owner's discretion.

I suppose that if it is important for this mailbox to work precisely as you are describing that POP is one reasonable way to do it, but it seems like a lot of work to have to setup everybody's clients to suck in mail for this account, making sure they are each configured to leave a copy on the server (and keeping the passwords straight). What happens if somebody unselects this option?

[Oisín]

In Thunderbird the way to delete items marked for deletion is via "compact mailbox". There is a nice add on that I use that gives you an expunge button in your toolbar for easy access. I can dig up the URL to it if you want.

That would be very nice, thanks

Also (less IMAP-related, but what the hey), when I move e-mails to local folders, that “+D”’s them on the server, which I don’t want: I want them kept in local folders, but also left as they are on the server. Is this possible, or should I just use server folders instead of local folders?

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by Oisín 

That would be very nice, thanks

Also (less IMAP-related, but what the hey), when I move e-mails to local folders, that “+D”’s them on the server, which I don’t want: I want them kept in local folders, but also left as they are on the server. Is this possible, or should I just use server folders instead of local folders?

Theodore Tegos - Mozilla Thunderbird Extensions

Download the one for OS X:

http://www.theodoretegos.net/mozilla....2.2-24_32.xpi

The default behavior for dragging a message into a local folder is to move the message. If you want to copy the message, drag the messages while you hold down your option key on your keyboard.

[Chuckit]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

I suppose that if it is important for this mailbox to work precisely as you are describing that POP is one reasonable way to do it

This is how people want it to work. If their e-mail starts changing around and disappearing without them doing anything, they get freaked out.

Originally Posted by besson3c 

but it seems like a lot of work to have to setup everybody's clients to suck in mail for this account, making sure they are each configured to leave a copy on the server (and keeping the passwords straight).

It's not. The procedure goes like this:

1. Set up a new e-mail account in Mail.

Originally Posted by besson3c 

What happens if somebody unselects this option?

Then we're no worse off than we would be with IMAP and I give somebody a stern talking-to.

[besson3c]

Chuckit: I guess once again I have under-estimated the weird things that people want to do to their email

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by turtle777 

Starman, this (your argument) is retarded.

Besson: "What is ONE single point showing that POP is superior to IMAP ?"

Starman: "Well, POP can do this and that."

Besson: "IMAP can do this as well. Not a VALID point of superiority."

Starman: "Bla bla, your opinion !"

WTF, dude

-t

Thanks good buddy Turtle! (can I call you that?)

Maybe these people that don't like IMAP use servers with broken hampstors?