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Which is better: POP or IMAP?

I am planning to buy an iPhone soon and am contemplating how to set up my email.

The "genius" (and I use that term loosely) at the Apple Store said only IMAP accounts work well with iPhones. The only one he could think of was Gmail, which I've used and don't particularly care for. I have a POP account and am unsure what the advantages/disadvantages are of using that with an iPhone?

And if I decide to use a desktop email client on my Mac, do I need to use Apple Mail? Or can I use Entourage 2004 (which, BTW, seems to support only POP accounts; it doesn't play with Gmail's IMAP).

Before I make my purchase, I want to know what I'm getting into with regard to mail.

Thanks.

iMac G5, iPod Nano, Mac OS X (10.4.11)

Posted on Feb 22, 2008 10:31 AM

17 replies

Niiro13

Level 1

55 points

Feb 25, 2008 2:25 PM in response to Chuck the Designer

Simply put (unless it was done earlier and I missed it) the most noticeable difference is:

POP downloads the email. Whatever you do to the email on your iPhone (delete, etc.) won't affect the main email (so if you delete a message on your iPhone, it will still be there when you log in through your computer...and vice versa...[i'd like to say that it's more "safer" if you accidentally delete email a lot])

IMAP is kind of like a direct link. Delete a message off of iPhone, it's deleted from the server next time it checks mail. Delete an email by logging in though computer, next time iPhone checks for mail, it's gone on the iPhone. Read unread mail on iPhone, turns as read on the server, etc.

shodobe

Level 1

0 points

Feb 26, 2008 9:15 PM in response to Chuck the Designer

My question is, if you have a POP e-mail acct that you have had for many years and it is the only one you have, then what do you do to download your messages? I am having a real difficult time even setting up my e-mail acct. The problem I am having is my password is case sensitive and it is lowercase. It seems when I try to put it in the setup it is uppercase sensitive and I keep getting a error. I have my ISP thru a small company and I am completely baffled. I got this iPhone for my wife so she could check e-mail when out of town but it doesn't seem to work. Any ideas? Thanks

Which is better: POP or IMAP?