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| When should I use IMAP instead of POP3? |
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| Product: Distinct WebMail Objects | Topic: IMAP component | Last updated: 2/3/2008 | | | | Q.: When should I use IMAP instead of POP3? | A.: You should use IMAP whenever you have a need to selectively retrieve email messages or manipulate mailboxes. POP3 can be used for more simple email retrieval and is only able to handle a single mailbox, the user’s INBOX.
IMAP4 is a more recent protocol that allows people to access their mailbox on the company server from different computers when travelling or working from home without having to copy these messages around. IMAP4 is a far more powerful protocol, but it is also more complex. It contains a rich set of commands, which allows you to list, preview, search, flag and organize your messages directly on the server. Of course it also allows you to download these messages to any client computer and delete them from the server if this is what you want to do. IMAP4 also supports commands to create, rename and delete mailboxes on the server, move messages between mailboxes and preview them before downloading them to your client system. See also IMAP4 Search and Fetch for a description of the most powerful commands of this protocol.
IMAP is also particularly useful when you want to share the same mailbox among several users. This is the case of a mailbox created for the only purpose of receiving subscriptions to Newsletters. Rather than cluttering the server with many copy of the same document, system administrators can create a single mailbox that can be shared by many subscribers.
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