IMAP and POP Mail

IMAP Mail

Here at the University of Calgary we use a mail system based on the IMAP protocol. IMAP stands for Internet Message Access Protocol. IMAP allows you to read and manage your e-mail via a program called an IMAP mail client. Mail clients can run on Windows, Macintosh, or Linux personal computers, and by connecting to the IT general computing servers. Using IMAP from a personal computer makes it easy to send, receive, open and view attachments such as word processor documents or spreadsheets, and to print messages on your local printer.

IMAP is suitable for users who need to access their e-mail from several locations, such as home, campus, and elsewhere. By centralizing access and storage on IMAP service, users, such as students in a lab situation, will not need to be concerned about having their e-mail messages scattered among several different computers.

POP Mail

E-mail programs that use only the POP protocol (Post Office Protocol) such as earlier versions of Eudora, Pegasus, and Netscape 2.0/3.0 will NOT be able to retrieve e-mail from the IMAP server. POP is popular with Internet Service Providers because all your e-mail messages are downloaded to one microcomputer and then deleted from the server. This conserves disk space on their servers, but leads to a problem for users who want to access their e-mail from more than one location.

For more information, see IMAP vs POP: Comparing Two Approaches to Remote Mailbox Access.