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20 September 2022 16:41 PM/

IMAP Vs POP3

Every day we are becoming more reliant on email for not only personal communication, we use email for financial and personal purposes that are critical in our daily lives. Many people use their email as a file or a storage location for these documents so that they can be located and retrieved easily when required at a moment's notice. This is why having the correct email setup or configuration is critical.

Previously we utilised POP3 for our email accounts and this was the preferred method of configuration for many people. A POP3 mail server receives emails and filters them to the user folders. When you connect to the mail server, all waiting messages are downloaded from the server to your computer and then deleted from the mail server.

When your emails are stored locally on the computer the potential for data loss is dramatically increased. As a technician I attend to customers' computers that are experiencing hard disk failure and see the result of critical data loss regularly. While we attempt to recover email and documents, the process is not always successful.

This is why most businesses and IT professionals use the IMAP protocol and configuration. It safeguards your emails and documents against hardware failure, local virus infections and provides email visibility through multiple devices, as many as you have.

IMAP or Internet Message Access Protocol

IMAP is a much safer method of email storage as your emails are stored on the mail server, not on your computer or laptop. IMAP provides the option to use your email on multiple devices seamlessly and your email is always synchronised.

If you are looking to secure your email and safeguard against data loss, please consider changing over to IMAP if you have not already done so.

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