imap vs pop

I prefer IMAP. IMAP syncs your mail account across all of your devices.

Example. Open an email on your iPhone and it is marked as read on your Mac and on gmail.com. Same with deleting, moving, archiving, etc.

POP just downloads your mail.

IMAP vs. POP

IMAP vs. POP3 E-mail Accounts Comparison - Upperhost.com

'better' is a subjective term. What is 'better' for you may or may not be 'better' for someone else. It depends on your (and their) situation.

The main difference is that with POP your client downloads the entire message from the server and (typically) deletes it off the server.

With IMAP the client only downloads the mail headers (the basic information it needs to show you who's sent and email, the subject and date). When you subsequently view the message the rest of the data is downloaded off the server.

IMAP tends to be preferred since it's faster (you don't have to download all your mail to see what's new), and is especially preferable on slow links (such as a mobile device) since you don't need to download messages you're not interested in.

Since IMAP also keeps the mail on the server it's easier to synchronize multiple devices that read the same mailbox.

Whether these features make IMAP 'better' for you or not is entirely up to you.

Some Mail Services give you a choice as well between IMAP & POP. Some IMAPS still download everything to your local mailbox (but a copy is still on the server). So the benefit to IMAP is reading an email on one device and then being able to refer to it from another.

Once a POP is downloaded it's only on that device. If you want to use it elsewhere you need to upload it to storage or email it again. The benefit is that its faster to download (since it's not trying to sync) and you aren't limited by message storage like an IMAP where you are normally limited to x amount of data on the server.