Years ago I used an email client program with Gmail. I used POP3 to download all messages to my PC. It was the only choice.
A few years later, Gmail added IMAP support. Everyone said it was better than POP3, but at the time I kept using POP3 anyway. Some time after that, I stopped using the email client program altogether and instead used Gmail's webmail interface. But it bothers me that I don't have a backup or local copy of my messages. So I am thinking of going back to the email client program. Now, the question once again is whether to use POP or IMAP. I understand basically how POP works (from a user's perspective), but not IMAP. One IMAP advantage is supposed to be that all messages are in the same folders on my PC as they are in Gmail's Labels, and that changes made in one (say, the PC side), automagically reflect in the other. Another is something about better synchronizing, whatever that means in this context. One more IMAP feature is supposed to be that you can use IMAP to upload older messages you have from before you had Gmail, to your Gmail account. Then you can have all your emails in one place. I have emails going back several years and it would be handy not having to locate them in different places, and be able to search through all of them. A concern with that is, if I accidentally delete a message on one side (either Google's end or my PC's end), or if a Gmail glitch makes some messages disappear, do they delete on the other end too? POP doesn't have that problem. Anyway ... I am wondering, is IMAP really so much better? Why would one choose IMAP over POP3, or vice-versa? Thanks, Andy -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Gmail-Users" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/gmail-users. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
