POP3 or IMAP

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Hi Guys & Girls

I’m currently in the process of removing my reliance on Google services. In that process I have reached “Email”. I have several account both private and business, all on domains i control, and hosted by One[dot]com. Currently its setup in such a way that my Gmail account pulls emails via POP3, and stuff mails in their bucket, and cleaning the storage from One[dot]com.
I will simply cut the ties, no longer allowing Gmail to (pop3) pull the accounts, and getting my emails directly from One[dot]com’s servers.
I have been debating back/forth on using POP3 or IMAP - as both have advantages and disadvantages.
IMAP would allow me to access the email from anywhere, both an IMAP client (thunderbird) from my laptop, and K9Mail from my phone, which is easy from an accessibility PoW. One[dot]com even have an okay’ish web-portal for email. But that would permanently store my email with One[dot]com (potential for loss of emails if they go under).
POP3 would obviously pull the mails to my home machine, from which i can setup a secure method of saving the emails on backup drives. However it does add admin work to me, and once the email is pulled (pop3) its no longer available for viewing outside the desktop client. When travelling i can still see the email on the webportal, as I will not get pulled till i get back home and launch the pull manually in Thunderbird.

I need some of you long time experts input on this, opinions and PoW’s – Im a long time (25+ linux/unix admin), so its entirely possible that i’m just overthinkning this :wink:

Hit me with your thoughts

Rhode

PS: I have had no reason NOT to trust One.com - let me know if there are concerns that i have missed

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I also use One.com domains and email addresses extensively and I have always opted to go with the IMAP, because then the emails are synced on around my clients.

You would still have access to the emails locally on your computer, even if one.com pulls the plug, or if you just loose internet, since “copies” are saved in your clients profile.

1 Like
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Agreed, IMAP gives you the option to do both, leave on the server or pull the messages down. IMAP is the newer of the two protocols and is more secure ( although, we are talking about email here so expect zero security unless you take steps to secure the messages ).

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Actually never consideres that the client, in this case thunderbird, actually cache the mails locally. I guess i could then just backup my .thunderbird folder, and have that as my keep-sake.

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I also vote for IMAP and you already spoke yourself about the advantages. :wink: