What is the real difference between accessing Gmail thru IMAP and POP?
When you use POP, your mail client program will download all of your messages from the server and store them on your computer. If you read your POP mail from two separate computers, you will not be able to tell on one computer which messages you had read on the other computer, and vice versa. Also, if you organize your messages into different folders, this will be for only that computer; the server does not keep track of how the messages are organized. With IMAP, messages are stored primarily on the server. Your computer will download them as necessary. An IMAP server maintains a central copy of how the messages are organized, so your folders will be the same on any computer you use, and reading a message on one computer will mark it as read on another computer. Which one is “better” depends on how you plan to use your email. POP is ideal for situations where you only ever read mail on one machine, especially if you do not always have an active internet connection (because all of your
