Backup email IMAP or POP What difference? [closed]

IMAP is a protocol for accessing electronic messages, commonly used in webmail or with a properly configured client. It has an interesting feature that messages are stored on the server and the protocol allows you to manage them, providing access to folders and messages. Message searches are performed directly on the server and you can also share message storage space between multiple mailboxes. Disadvantage it lies in the fact that it is always necessary to access the server to access the messages, since they are not downloaded. Another is that the storage space and so, how many messages can be saved, depends on the server, since the emails are not saved locally.

POP3 is an older protocol and is used for remote access to an email box. This protocol allows the transfer of emails from the remote box to the local storage in a computer. Each time an agent wants to fetch the emails from the remote box, they must connect to the server, authenticate, and transfer the messages one-by-one, which typically causes the message to be deleted from the server. After this process, the connection to the server is undone and the user can read or perform any action with their emails locally.

The MailStore Home is a backup tool for the email box. Works with both the IMAP protocol and the POP3. Locaweb has tutorial for using this software to backup the email box here . The use of the IMAP protocol, given its conception of keeping files on the server unless an explicit command to delete is given by the user, by itself is safer for any case.

IMAP and POP are two communication protocols commonly used in email exchange.

In the IMAP protocol, the application that uses it, connects with the email server and performs a synchronization between the messages in real time, making it possible to receive messages (emails) without having to reconnect or give a flush in the connection. This protocol is the most used nowadays, since it is increasingly common for users to want to access their email box from several different places. (Using webmail, apps, smartphones etc.).

In the POP protocol, the application that uses it connects to the email server, downloads all messages and closes the connection. So it is not possible to receive messages in real time, since only a "copy" of the emails from the server has been created and the application is working with these copies offline. The POP protocol is a bit older and is increasingly being unusable. (Obviously there are still applications use it-depends a lot on the rules of business).

Now it's up to you to decide how you want to connect to your email server.

If you want to know more information on this subject. There are quite a lot of articles on the internet about this. But as you commented on locaweb, I suggest reading this here .