What Is The Difference Between IMAP4 And POP3 In Email
The main difference is that IMAP (Internet Messaged Access Protocol) always syncs with the
mail server so that any changes you make in your mail client (Microsoft Outlook and
Thunderbird) will instantly appear on your webmail inbox.
On the other hand, in POP (Post Office Protocol), your mail client account and mail server
are not synced. It means whatever changes you make to your email account in the mail
client not be transferred to the webmail inbox.
In simple terms, if you are using IMAP and mark a mail as read, it gets marked as read in
your web-based inbox too (because the changes are happening on the server). However,
this won't be the case if you are using POP, because the mails are downloaded to your PC
and changes won't reflect on the server.
IMAP:- The biggest advantage of using IMAP is you can access your mail from multiple mail
clients and each client detects the change in real-time. Suppose the mail server is connected
with two different mail clients (let's say Client 1 and Client 2) on different computers. If the
user deletes a message in mail client 1, the change will appear on the mail server
immediately and also on mail client 2. In IMAP all messages from mail clients and servers are
synced with each other.
POP:- You can download emails from the mail server to your PC using POP. After
downloading, the original mail will be removed from the server and hence you can't access
it from another computer (Note: In Gmail, there is an option to keep the copy of the mail-in
the inbox, Thunderbird also provides an option to leave messages on the server until you
delete them). But there are lots of other options missing (for example - if you send a
message from a mail client then you won't find that message under sent items in your
mailbox).
