Difference between POP and IMAP
Main difference
POP and IMAP are the email protocols. The email protocol is the procedure that the email program uses to communicate with the server. IMAP stands for “Internet Message Access Protocol, which is synchronized with the mail server. It will appear in your webmail inbox if any changes are made to your mail client. POP stands for “Post Office Protocol”, which is not synchronized with the mail server and therefore any changes to the email account do not appear in the webmail inbox.
What is IMAP?
IMAP stands for “Internet Message Access Protocol, which is synchronized with the mail server. It will appear in your webmail inbox if any changes are made to your mail client. IMAP allows you to access mail from various mail clients in real time. The messages are stored on a remote server. You can access your mail anywhere from any computer or even through mobile devices.
What is POP?
POP stands for “Post Office Protocol”, which is not synchronized with the mail server and therefore any changes to the email account will not appear in the webmail inbox. With POP, when you open an email message from a computer, it will be deleted from the server. Now you can only read that message from that specific device, but you can’t read from other devices or PC.
Key differences
- IMAP constantly synchronizes the email program with the mail server, but POP does not.
- In IMAP, you can access your email anytime from anywhere through any device, while in POP, once the email is downloaded, it can now only be accessed through that device. device.
- IMAP allows you to access previously read messages when you are offline, but you cannot get unread messages offline, while POP allows you to access received messages when you are offline.
- IMAP allows you to read email from multiple locations, while POP does not allow you to read messages from another location.
- Email verification with IMAP is faster than with PO.
- In POP filters they transfer incoming/outgoing emails to local mailboxes only while in IMAP filters they transfer emails to other mailboxes wherever they are.
- The messages are deleted on the PC in POP while in IMAP the messages are deleted directly on the server.