Differences between IMAP and POP3

POP3 and IMAP are two different types of email protocols, which establish a communication channel between two computers so that email can be transferred between them involving a mail server. They differ in the way by which they establish connections and allow users access to their emails.

 POP3 is the older one and its simple design enables users to manage their emails when there’s no smooth access to the internet. It doesn’t provide synchronization between the server and the device and only allows them to download messages to their computers. They can read them, write replies or new drafts while they’re offline, and then send them when they’re back online. Only messages from the inbox can be downloaded to your computer and depending on your settings, they can be deleted from the server as soon as you download them to save disk space. If you receive an email message with a large attachment, it must be fully downloaded before you can delete it. If you use an email box configured using POP3 on several computers, changes made to messages will be visible on one of the computers - the one where the changes were made. 

IMAP is a modern, complex, and flexible email protocol that requires an uninterrupted connection to the Internet. It’s the recommended one when an email box is used on multiple devices and/or by multiple users. Changes like message marking, replying, deleting or forwarding, made on one device are automatically synchronized with the server and become visible on other devices as well. It allows the user to see all the folders on the mail server, provides a powerful search capability to search for emails, and partially read the content before downloading. Being able to use these functions can be very useful because users save time since emails don’t need to be downloaded.

We strongly advise using IMAP protocol to handle your emails.