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Hey, POP3 still makes sense. Having a local copy of your emails is useful.
by fluoridation 9mo ago
Hey, POP3 still makes sense. Having a local copy of your emails is useful.
- direwolf20 9mo agoIf you want it to be the only copy and not sync with anything POP3 is line–based too, anyway. Maybe you can rsync your maildir?
- fluoridation 9mo agoI just read it mainly in one place and through the web interface when I have to.
- dylan604 9mo agoIf your "in one place" reader is still open and downloading messages then there will be no messages to view in the web interface when you have to.
- skydhash 9mo agoPOP3 is more for reading and acting on your email in one place (taking notes, plan actions, discard and delete,…). No need to consume them on other devices as you’ve already extracted the important bits. I use imap on my mobile device, but that’s mostly for recent emails until I get to my computer. Then it’s downloaded and deleted from the server.
- fluoridation 9mo agoThere will, because my client doesn't delete the messages from the server when it downloads them.
- kevin_thibedeau 9mo agoAny decade now and we'll be ready for JMAP.
- ahoka 9mo agoBut it's more akin to consuming a message queue. You have fetched it, it's gone.
- foresto 9mo agoThis is incorrect. POP3 does not require fetched messages to be deleted from the server.
- Jaxan 9mo agoIsn’t the only difference between pop and imap that pop removes the mail from the server? I only use imap, and all my email is available offline.
- fluoridation 9mo agoNo, the difference is that IMAP doesn't store anything other than headers on the client (at least, not until the user tries to read a message), while POP3 eagerly downloads messages whenever they're available. A POP3 client can be configured with various remote retention policies, or even to never delete downloaded messages. I don't have an IMAP account available to check, but AFAIK, you should not have locally the content of any message you've never read before. The whole point of IMAP is that it doesn't download messages, but instead acts like a window into the server.
- mmooss 9mo agoAlso, IMAP syncs the other way. If you locally tag a message locally or move it to another folder, it also happens on the server.
- direwolf20 9mo agoPOP is a simple mail transfer protocol (hehe...). It supports three things: get number of mails, download mail by number, delete mail by number. This is what you need to move mails in bulk from one point to another. POP3 mail clients are local maildir clients that use POP3 to get new mail from the server. It's like SMTP if it were based on polling. IMAP is an interactive protocol that is closer to the interaction between Gmail frontend and backend. It does many things. The client implements a local view of a central source of truth.
- gsich 9mo agoDepending on what you configured. It can also keep the mail on the server.
- ars 9mo agoNot at all. IMAP can do a lot of complex operations on the email while leaving it on the server, for example you can have the server search the email, flag it (mark it important, or read, or unread). POP can download the email, and that's about it.
- encom 9mo agoNothing stops you from locally archiving your email with IMAP.
- mmooss 9mo agoHow do you do that, by default? Can you tell an IMAP client to work like POP3 and download everything?
- direwolf20 9mo agoSome you can
- masfuerte 9mo agoIn Thunderbird you can "Select this folder for offline use".
- throw_await 9mo agoman imapsync