To Pop or Not to Pop: That's the Question!

If you're asking me for my advice, I'd advise not to.We're talking email. POP3 vs. IMAP. At the company I work for, we've got two choices for configuring an email client (such as Outlook or Thunderbird): POP3 or IMAP.

POP3 email retrieves email from the email server. It then erases it from the server while storing it on the local computer. You can choose to keep a copy of the email on the server, but you have to manually go in and clean up your email on the server after you've already cleaned it out of your email client. If your local computer crashes, probably you will lose your email (unless you've backed it up to another location). Once it pops, there it stays! It's stored in a PST (personal storage) folder until you delete it.


IMAP email is stored on an internet server. If the local computer is lost, crashed or stolen, the email is still retrievable. If you want to have your email sent to your smartphone, but still need to access your email on a computer, you'll want to choose IMAP email. With IMAP email configured on your smartphone, you can delete your email once on your phone and it's gone from the server... eliminating the need to delete the email twice. You'll have two PST's on your computer if you configure IMAP email. One PST is for personal storage of anything that you don't want to keep in the IMAP folder and the other PST tells the email client how to get to the IMAP folder on the Internet. It's kind of like an appendix; you can delete it without too many negative consequences.

If you have more than one person accessing a mailbox, you need to decide how you will use that mailbox. If you want each person to see every email in that box, then forward the email popping it down to each person that needs to see it. If you want the person who deals with the email to erase it and eliminate the need for a second/third person to read the email, then you'll want to configure IMAP email.

Some of you may have heard about an email system called Exchange. Many organizations have moved away from Exchange because of the costs and the amount of administration that is required to maintain it. Usually an organization will need a full-time person just to deal with an Exchange server. It's cheaper to pay a third-party to host email. Personally, I wouldn't recommend it unless the organization had more than 10,000 employees. It's a powerful email system, but overkill for most companies. Email is stored in an OST file in Exchange on a company-owned or rented computer.  An OST and PST file are not interchangeable. If you have to go from one to another, a conversion has to be done.