Hey Andy
On Thu, Apr 17, 2014 at 6:41 AM, Andy ai.eg...@gmail.com wrote:
Years ago I used an email client program with Gmail. I used POP3 to
download all messages to my PC. It was the only choice.
A few years later, Gmail added IMAP support. Everyone said it was better
than POP3, but at the time I kept using POP3 anyway. Some time after that,
I stopped using the email client program altogether and instead used
Gmail's webmail interface.
But it bothers me that I don't have a backup or local copy of my messages.
So I am thinking of going back to the email client program. Now, the
question once again is whether to use POP or IMAP.
I understand basically how POP works (from a user's perspective), but not
IMAP.
One IMAP advantage is supposed to be that all messages are in the same
folders on my PC as they are in Gmail's Labels, and that changes made in
one (say, the PC side), automagically reflect in the other. Another is
something about better synchronizing, whatever that means in this context.
With IMAP, the messages are essentially stored on the server and your mail
client synchronizes with that. Mail clients such as Thunderbird will
maintain a local store of the messages, and keep that in sync with the
server. The parameters of this are configurable in the client eg. max. size
of email to download, how much disk space to use, how far back etc.
Backing this up is trivial, it is simply a matter of taking a copy of the
folder ImapMail\imap.gmail.com under the profile directory. Here the
messages are stored as individual files under subfolders eg. INBOX.mozmsgs.
These .wdseml files are easily opened in the mail client.
Here is a document in the Mozillazine KB:
http://kb.mozillazine.org/IMAP_backup
Using Outlook, one could simply take a backup of the .PST file, or even
use the Export function to create one.
One more IMAP feature is supposed to be that you can use IMAP to upload
older messages you have from before you had Gmail, to your Gmail account.
Then you can have all your emails in one place. I have emails going back
several years and it would be handy not having to locate them in different
places, and be able to search through all of them.
Indeed. One could simply drag and drop messages into the IMAP folder and
they would sync up to the server.
A concern with that is, if I accidentally delete a message on one side
(either Google's end or my PC's end), or if a Gmail glitch makes some
messages disappear, do they delete on the other end too? POP doesn't have
that problem.
This is the one con with IMAP, especially a concern if one's Gmail account
is compromised. But then again, if using POP and say, my house is burgled
and all computer equipment goes, so do all my messages.
Anyway ... I am wondering, is IMAP really so much better?
Why would one choose IMAP over POP3, or vice-versa?
If, like me, one reads email on multiple devices, it is useful to have
them all in sync. If I send an email from my phone, I want to have that in
my Sent Mail folder in Gmail and in Thunderbird.
All the state information of messages when using POP3 are maintained in the
client eg. read/unread. This is very unreliable and also obviously is not
visible across interfaces/devices.
In my experience, IMAP is the more reliable method. Keeping one's account
secure is obviously highly important though. Taking regular backups is
important with either method, but I certainly feel more comfortable having
a local backup *and* security of cloud storage.
--
Marko
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