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randax · Mar 19, 2008, 01:04 PM

Hello
Fairly new user and would like to get your suggestions re a free e-mail account/mail server which can easily work with Mail. Also any recommendation on whether IMAP or POP3 is best. (fairly basic MacBookAir user)
I'm not very keen on gmail.

thanks

Cold Warrior · Mar 19, 2008, 01:18 PM

gmail works fine. Gives you the option of POP3 or IMAP.

randax · Mar 19, 2008, 01:31 PM

Just not a great fan of that company. Any other suggestions?

Timo · Mar 19, 2008, 01:49 PM

I prefer IMAP.

Check out fastmail.fm. The free account is a little too limited, but the one-time only fee account is good.

Sherman Homan · Mar 19, 2008, 02:11 PM

If you use one primary computer, POP.
If you have more than one computer, IMAP. The deal is that with IMAP all your email is stored on a server so that when you log in from home or office or traveling with your laptop the experience is the same. A POP account downloads email from the server to your computer, then it is not available if you log in with a different machine. However, you can modify POP settings to mimic IMAP.

selowitch · Mar 19, 2008, 02:35 PM

Originally Posted by Sherman Homan

you can modify POP settings to mimic IMAP.

How? More importantly, why?

Sherman Homan · Mar 19, 2008, 02:59 PM

There is usually a "Leave a copy on the server" option. That way you can be sure that in a couple of months your account will bounce because it is full. I prefer IMAP, but some services still don't offer it.

selowitch · Mar 19, 2008, 03:03 PM

Originally Posted by Sherman Homan

There is usually a "Leave a copy on the server" option. That way you can be sure that in a couple of months your account will bounce because it is full. I prefer IMAP, but some services still don't offer it.

Precisely. So how and why would you try to make POP mimic IMAP, since IMAP is clearly superior in cases where you do, in fact, wish to leave your mail and your folder hierarchy on the server to be accessed from multiple clients or devices?

Koralatov · Mar 19, 2008, 03:31 PM

Originally Posted by randax

Just not a great fan of that company. Any other suggestions?

I’m not a huge fan of Google either, but that doesn’t stop me appreciating their products. Gmail isn’t perfect—the “All Mail” and a couple other folders appear uselessly in Mail.app—but it is free, and you really won’t get better from a free email provider. Having ~6.5GB of storage, that’s constantly increasing, means that you’ll never, ever need to delete an email ever again, unless you want to. Their spam filter is almost fool-proof and I haven’t seen a false positive yet. The fact you can access it via webmail is also a big plus.

Overall, your options would seem to be use Gmail, or use something inferior. If you really object to using an @gmail.com address, you can set up Google Apps for Your Domain with you own domain and get [email protected]. No-one will ever know it’s a Gmail account.

JKT · Mar 19, 2008, 04:26 PM

Originally Posted by Sherman Homan

If you use one primary computer, POP.
If you have more than one computer, IMAP. The deal is that with IMAP all your email is stored on a server so that when you log in from home or office or traveling with your laptop the experience is the same. A POP account downloads email from the server to your computer, then it is not available if you log in with a different machine. However, you can modify POP settings to mimic IMAP.

Conversely, you can configure your mail client to download IMAP mail to your computer for offline access. So there is zero advantage to using POP in any circumstance (and it simply isn't possible to configure POP to be like IMAP in all ways, only in some).

Sherman Homan · Mar 19, 2008, 05:08 PM

selowitch, I completely agree, IMAP is superior to POP. Some ISPs don't offer it though.

turtle777 · Mar 19, 2008, 05:26 PM

Guys, get used to the fact that some people think POP is superior to IMAP.

They don't have facts or arguments, but they'll fight you till the end. I've seen it happen in the Lounge more than once.

At any rate, IMAP is the way to go, there is NO reason to settle for POP.

-t

zerock · Mar 19, 2008, 07:25 PM

aim.com has IMAP too if you like. personally i use .Mac and Gmail with the Mail.app

randax · Mar 20, 2008, 08:43 AM

Many thanks for the advice.

Mastrap · Mar 20, 2008, 11:31 AM

Gmail all the way. I understand why you would rather not work with them, but the quality of their product is second to none. We have google apps running on our domain and it could not work better.

pendragon · Mar 20, 2008, 11:37 AM

A good comparison (though a bit dated) with advantages & disadvantages of each can be found at The IMAP Connection -- Comparing Two Approaches to Remote Mailbox Access: IMAP vs. POP.

As for me: IMAP