This is the report of an e - mail junkie who determine that an out - of - fashion e - mail protocol was deserving going back to .

Last week , I switched my e - post from POP e - post to IMAP . If you ’re not conversant with those acronyms , here ’s the effect : POP ( Post Office Protocol ) ring mail downloads your mail to your tough driving force , while IMAP ( Internet Message Access Protocol ) keeps everything — even your sent mail — on a server . In light , IMAP acquire you e - mail portability without having to use a internet - based e - mail user interface . And theoretically , any einsteinium - mail name and address can support POP or IMAP — the administrator or cyberspace service supplier ( ISP ) just has to support IMAP .

The last meter I used IMAP , it was 1998 and I was finishing up college . We all used a Unix program call pine , via a Unix copycat called Telnet , to access our eastward - mail . I bollocks up around with this antediluvian user interface , and I was thrilled to happen upon the Mac - base node Eudora , which I start out using when I proceed out into the “ real world . ” For me , naif unseasoned thing that I was , I equated IMAP with the antiquated pine via Telnet , and soda with Eudora and ease - of - use .

And now , with net military service provider generally providing POP e - mail only , it seems that a lot of us ( academic mental institution take out ) have forget about good quondam IMAP .

And I am one of those weird multitude who is always stress to reach organizing nirvana . My most recent organize - my - stuff epiphany , brought to me by Merlin Mann in hisMacworldarticle “ The inbox makeover ” , was that there is a much better way to organise my due east - mail . ( I have since become an obsessional reader of Merlin’s43FoldersWeb site . )

Basically , this coming involves emptying your inbox into about six folders that you then work separately and often . I tried it for a week , and then decided it worked much better than the “ accumulate and lookup ” e - mail service method . Of of course , if I ’m using daddy ring armor , my folders wo n’t be available on all three of my computers .

IMAP lets me keep all my Es - post on my company ’s eastward - mail host , along with any customs folders , and my Sent items . I can now recover my mode though any e - ring armour thread , no matter which machine I ’m using . The downside of this situation , of path , and one that might make a pile of people nervous , is that everything is stored on a server unless you move item to your calculator . And , there ’s storage place . Your mail server admin or ISP has to set the storage limit and decide how strict sec / he will be about making you stick to it .

This depot - limit takings would make it nearly out of the question to use the “ I keep everything in my inbox and hunt for it when I need it ” method of e - post organization . But IMAP is perfect for my raw six - folder approach . This paradigm means I erase more e - post quicker , and thus habituate up less repositing space .

I ’m much more sure-footed that my tocopherol - ring mail is properly managed . Now , if someone can just give me some hint for keep my signal flag on messages while I ’m using Entourage , Mail.app , and my Webmail , I will be one step nearer to enlightenment .