IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol) and POP3 (Post Office Protocol 3) are the two most important protocols for obtaining email. All servers and email clients are virtually supported by both.
When configuring an email client, such as Outlook, Thunderbird or Mail.app, you will find that you have the option to choose between IMAP or POP3 for the incoming mail server.
Which one should you use?
It depends entirely on what works best for you:
- In case of configuring the account as IMAP, all the emails that you send to your account will be downloaded in the mail client program, but a copy will remain in the servers. Therefore, if you enter the Webmail, you can view the emails and if you enter another computer that has the email client (Outlook, Thunderbird, Mail.app) configured, you can also download them. This type of configuration can be efficient in some cases, but keep in mind that if many emails accumulate in the Webmail, it is likely that the space in the box will be saturated, making it impossible to receive more emails. Therefore, you should usually enter your Webmail from http://www.yourdomain.com/webmail to delete emails or increase the capacity of the account space.
- If you chose POP3 option, each time you send an email and download it to the mail client, it will be automatically deleted from the servers.Then, when entering the Webmail, you will not see that mail again. This type of configuration is very useful to avoid problems with the space of the e-mail account and so that all the information is stored only on your computer and not on the mail server.
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