GMail shakes IMAP out of coma
Google has slipped IMAP support into its GMail service, allowing users to manage their mail on the server and access it using different clients, with the status of their messages maintained. IMAP is a vast improvement over POP3 - the more popular protocol for collecting email - though it seems GMail will continue to support both …
I believe that GMail ignores delete commands from POP3 clients. You have to configure this in the Forwarding and POP3 section of GMail's settings.
It's about freaking time they got off their asses and released IMAP support.
I mean, you know who beat (by a wide margin) Google, the supposed savior of humanity (to the fanboys at least), to giving users IMAP access to their free e-mail service?
AOL.
That has nothing to do with IMAP, that's the stingy storage your ISP / Server has per mailbox.
Apart from folder structure there's nothing wrong with either protocol. Most "issues" are client based (like old Outlook 97 forgetting the POP3 message marker and downloading *all* you mail again every couple of weeks...)
Admittedly, I can POP to mailboxes over telnet better than I can IMAP over telnet... :P
Clearly you aren't as much of an IT guru as you think. Otherwise you'd realise that mailbox full is because someone has imposed limits on you. Complain about the people imposing limits that break your work rather than complaining about a protocol that isn't the problem.
IMAP beats POP3 for anyone and everyone who uses more than one mail client and/or more than one PC. For me, everything must be IMAP now because I move around so much. Fortunately my main mail is on our own server, so limits (or lack of) are imposed by me not someone else.
I've had my FastMail account for quite a few years now. It's the only free email account I can find that actually provides IMAP4 support. The downside is that it is only 10MB. Larger storage is available, but comes at a cost.
I was hooked on IMAP4 ever since I was introduced to it at my former uni. POP3 works for most people who require only rudimentary functions. For synchronisation purposes, POP3 is a poor alternative to IMAP4.
I'm eagerly anticipating IMAP on my Gmail account.
This effectively brings free or cheap push email to the masses, because the standard series 60 mail client supports IMAP IDLE. When all the PHBs see mere proles getting push email, they'll throw away their crackberries and we can all have our server resources back.
You may be a user, even perhaps a programmer, but don't use the "g" word in vain :-) You're not a guru.
There aren't any differences between POP and IMAP *from the point of view of your specific rants* (note emphasis).
If you're unable to log in for a few days (like maybe go on vacation), POP3 can also hit whatever size limit your mail admin has set. Conversely, you can have your laptop/desktop IMAP mail client move all messages to the local spool as soon as you switch it on, just like POP.
As for someone else reading your email, until you log on and POP them off, they're sitting there. And if you think you're logging on every 30 seconds or whatever, well (a) you can do the same with the IMAP client anyway, so what's your point? and (b) 2 lines in /etc/procmailrc gets your server admin a copy of all your emails, *before* they hit your inbox. A few more lines can do the corruption, deletion, sending to FBI, and anything else your paranoia can dream up too. Pop or imap doesn't matter.
I'd be glad to supply the scripts if your admin will contact me, but I'll bet he already knows. In fact, seeing as you're such a nice guy, he's probably doing it already ;-)
Better stop using email, buddy!
Doesnt work yet... tried https, switching to us english... Still no luck :(
With gmail, assuming you don't have more than 3gb or emails you can just set it to auto archive any mail downloaded over pop3, so you can always access it even if you HAVE downloaded it, via the web.. and its like a auto backup system :)
so i dont see why imap is so important on gamail...
what your not doing william is selecting the radio button in gmail settings that says something like automaticly delete once downloaded....
Yes, yes, yes Ian, and here's another one:
"IMAP compliments webmail..."
Unless Paul's implying IMAP praises webmail, the word is *complement*.
Incidentally, I've been running mail servers for about 8 years now and we support pop3/imap/webmail, but my biggest problem with imap/webmail is not the disk space I have to provide, it's the difficulty with load-balancing across multiple, geographically dispersed servers. Because of its "now you host it now you don't" nature, pop3's a breeze, but the synchronisation issues with the other two are a pain.
I may be wrong - but I don't think Pop3 has any of the inbuilt server side mail searching/filtering/storage functionality that imap has built in, enabling you to quickly find the mail you want, and store it somewhere sensible, making far superior to anything pop3 offers.- But then again I guess most mail clients (except pine) don't give you access to all this extra functionality.
www.merseymail.com, was built round Imap, and until recently offered external imap use - a service which sadly has been withdrawn due to over use.
How do you use >1 mail client on the same account?
IMAP makes this a breeze - whether I use my desktop, laptop or phone, I see the same mail, correctly marked as read/unread.
Go IMAP!
There may be advantages to IMAP, but GMail's POP3 support already gives you the best of both worlds. You can download messages to your own mail client but set GMail to archive them when you do. If you use GMail's SMTP server for sending, sent messages are kept in your GMail account too.
I've taken to using GMail as my main e-mail client but occasionally download messages to Thunderbird so that I have a local copy.
For those who don't already know, there's also quite a nice mobile client available for GMail.
I use the same POP3 account on three clients - you just leave messages on the server instead of deleting when you download it.
The POP3 server can often forward a notification or whole message to another email account with each email received.
My experience with IMAP clients, is the server is set up to delete messages after 90 days, which also deletes the local "offline" copy. IMAP gives you virtual folders, but if you are not careful, their contents also get deleted after 90 days.
Maybe consider not being a FastMail freeloader and upgrade your Guest-level account to a Member-level account for the modest one-time payment, with the ability to purchase additional storage beyond the provided 16MB if needed.
Well, with Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo Mail and others offering gigabytes of email storage for free, I find it hard to justify paying US$14.95 for a measly 6 MB of extra space. Also, if you're going to call people names, at least have the guts to reveal your own.
