[CLUE-Tech] IMAP vs POP

[Jeff Cann]

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On Friday 04 June 2004 9:35 pm, Timothy Klein wrote:

> It works fine.  But it is nothing like IMAP (as I understand it, I've never
> used IMAP).  Its just a flat collection of messages on the server.  No
> ability to organize messages on the server, etc, and if you access the
> messages with different mail clients, you end up with several copies of the
> same messages, IIRC.

Yes, these are all advantages of IMAP.  POP3 also has advantages.  Choosing 
between depends on what you want to do.  Here's a couple of high-level 
comparisons:

+ http://www.umanitoba.ca/campus/acn/support/imap/imapvspop.html
+ http://ccism.pc.athabascau.ca/html/vhd/imap_pop.xml

A mail server I maintain allows only secure IMAP.  We also use the webmail 
feature of PHP Groupware.  So it's no matter if users access mail from MS 
Outlook, Mozilla, Kmail or the webmail -- messages are always available.

The 'flat collection' Tim refers to is a difference between a couple of 
(standard?) mailbox formats - mbox (all messages are in a single file) and 
maildir (each message in a separate file).  However, the type of mailbox 
storage does not automatically imply POP3 or IMAP (but most IMAP servers use 
maildir format because it's easier to work with).

Jeff
- -- 
"Faith that does not affect a person's culture is a faith not fully embraced, 
not entirely thought out, not faithfully lived."
- - Pope John Paul II

http://isuma.org/


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