Thank you to all who have answered.
My problem is, 3 of my email addresses are on a private VPS located in
another country. The location itself is not so much of an issue, but
when I set up the server (dovecot/postfix) I only configured it for
POP, and changing to IMAP will mean completely reconfiguring my server,
which I'm loathe to do since it's also hosts my primary email address,
and has been working well in the current configuration for the past 4 -
5 years. I recall it took me an age to get it working correctly
Besides, it doesn't explain the slow startup (TB startup as normal
regardless of where the mail dir was), nor does it explain the
addressbook issues.
Steve
On Thu, 2018-02-15 at 22:47 +0000, Pete Biggs wrote:
> > Okay, Patrick,
>
> I hope you'll pardon me jumping in to answer the question ...
>
> > that raises a question. I stick to POP and always have,
> > and my bride and I each have both iPhones and iPads which we
> > regularly
> > use to fetch our mail traffic when traveling, plus I have a laptop
> > running Fedora which I sometimes haul along on trips so that I'll
> > have a
> > better keyboard. None of these devices have any difficulty
> > retrieving
> > mail from the POP server at the ISP that hosts our mail. Except
> > that
> > every so often, following one of the frequent iOS updates to the
> > Pad,
> > my POP-server password has disappeared and has to be reloaded :-)
> >
> > I should maybe add that my wife's address and mine are on the same
> > domain,
> > fdi.us, since I own that one.
> >
> > So what compelling reason would there be for us to change to IMAP?
> > We danged sure don't do any "sharing" with anyone else,and being
> > retired, foresee no chance that we ever would. So - IMAP - ??? Why?
> >
>
> First off, the bottom line is that if POP works for you, then that's
> fine.
>
> The issue though is that POP was designed as a mail retrieval
> protocol:
> you connect to the server, get the mail, disconnect. By default the
> mail is removed from the server once it has been retrieved. In some
> ways it's modelled on the way that paper mail operates if you have a
> post office box: the mail is moved around the country by the postal
> service until it lands in your PO Box, you then go to the post office
> and retrieve your mail. That's basically why POP = Post Office
> Protocol.
>
> This was all fine in the 1980's when you only ever had a single
> computer that you used - the mail could be downloaded to your
> computer
> and manipulated from there.
>
> When people started having two computers, many implementations added
> the ability to leave the messages on the server rather than just
> moving
> the messages to the local computer so that multiple machines could
> get
> hold of the mail.
>
> As POP is a purely retrieval protocol, it doesn't have any concept of
> more fancy things such as folders - it has one mail store, the INBOX.
>
> So, all well and good if you are just using one machine. Evolution
> is
> perfectly capable of retrieving mail by POP and putting it in the "On
> My Computer" INBOX. You might even have filters on that incoming mail
> to put it in other folders.
>
> But what happens if you want to use a different device. Sure, you can
> leave the mail on the server and the second device will retrieve it
> as
> well. But if you had deleted some mail, or moved something to a
> different folder, or replied to an email, this second device will
> know
> nothing about that, so you'll have to delete the mail again, or move
> it
> to a folder again, and try and remember if you had replied to it (and
> what you had said in that reply).
>
> With IMAP this is all built in. The mail stays on the server, so any
> changes you make to the mail folders is picked up by all the devices:
> you delete an email and it won't be seen on the other devices; move
> it
> to another folder in the IMAP structure (yes, IMAP knows about
> folders)
> and it will be in that folder on all the other machines; and the
> replied-to flag is visible on all the IMAP clients along with the
> Sent
> folder so you can see that a mail has been answered and you have
> access
> to the contents of the message you've sent.
>
> It's nothing to do with sharing mail between users, it's to do with
> you
> having access to a consistent view of your own email between devices.
> I
> currently have 4 Linux boxes running Evolution, 2 Windows machines
> using Outlook and/or TB, an iPhone and an iPad all using IMAP to
> access
> at least three different mail accounts - many of them at the same
> time
> - and they all see the same emails in the same folder structure.
>
> The only downside of IMAP is that you need a reliable network
> connection in order to retrieve and work on your mail. There are
> workarounds: devices and servers are usually very good at resolving
> conflicts and inconsistencies; there's also programs such as Offline
> IMAP that synchronises local changes to an IMAP server if your net
> connection is dodgy. TBH these days WiFi and 4G are so common that
> it's a surprise when I can't get on a network somewhere!
>
> I'm sorry, this mail seems to have turned quite long - but your usage
> pattern of multiple devices accessing the same mail source is just
> about ideal for IMAP!
>
> P.
>
>
>
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