Colby College supports two protocols to allow e-mail clients to access your e-mail. Some e-mail clients can use both protocols, while others only use one. The two protocols have fundamentally different ideas about where your e-mail should be stored, and each has their pros and cons.
Most modern PC or Mac e-mail clients will support both POP and IMAP. POP is recommended for these clients. Webmail and Pine only support IMAP.
NOTE: do not use both POP and IMAP at the same time. POP (Post Office Protocol) POP copies your mail messages from Colby’s mail server to your personal computer. The fundamental philosophy of POP is “store your e-mail on your computer.” After messages are copied to your PC or Mac,the messages on Colby’s mail server are:
- Deleted from the mail server (the default action)
- Left on the mail server for X days (usually 14 days)
- Left on the mail server until you deliberately delete them.
The pros and cons of POP depend on whether you only use one computer to check your e-mail. The pros of POP are:
- Fast and efficient, especially if you do not leave e-mail on the server.
- Your e-mail is on your computer and can be accessed offline.
- You are not subject to Colby’s storage limits on e-mail because your e-mail is stored on your computer.
- Attachments are handled robustly, because the attachment is downloaded to your computer where you have the software programs that can use it.
The cons of POP are:
- You cannot easily reference the same messages from multiple computers, unless you leave e-mail on the server.
- You cannot use webmail unless you leave e-mail on the server.
- Colby’s central backups do not back up your saved messages. It is your responsibility to back up your personal computer.
IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol) IMAP leaves your e-mail on Colby’s e-mail servers, for access from any remote IMAP client. IMAP has more features than POP, and therefore has more settings and can be more complicated to use.
The pros of IMAP are:
- You have a uniform view of your e-mail, no matter what IMAP client or computer you use.
- Colby’s backup programs back up your mailboxes and folders.
- Webmail uses IMAP.
The cons of IMAP are:
- You are subject to storage quotas on Colby’s mail servers, currently 1 Gigabyte for all of your email (both INBOX and folders). Colby’s disk quotas are small compared to the disk space found on the average personal computer..
- Mailbox access is slower, especially for large mailboxes.
- You may not be able to do anything with an attachment, depending on your IMAP client.
