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-   -   POP3 for the Long Haul? (http://www.emaildiscussions.com/showthread.php?t=73624)

jclarkw2 12 Mar 2018 02:52 AM

POP3 for the Long Haul?
 
What are the long-term prospects for POP3 at Runbox?

One of the reasons I'm quitting Comcast (in additional to terrible customer service) is that they keep hinting they are moving away from POP3 (which servers are becoming more and more unreliable) in favor of IMAP.

Some of us dinosaurs still like to download and store all our e-mail on our own computers. A few still even refuse to carry a smart phone. I plan never to switch to IMAP and need an e-mail provider on which I can rely not to dump POP3. Is Runbox the one? -- jclarkw

dbowdley 12 Mar 2018 07:43 AM

Hello jclarkw2. An interesting question. We do promote our IMAP service in preference to POP for a variety of reasons mentioned at the link below:

https://help.runbox.com/imap/

That said, we have no plans to drop POP, and when we moved to our current POP service we did ensure that we kept all the same functionality as with the previous service including the POP from Folder feature.

More recently we included POP in our upgrades to ensure that only secure connections could be made to our servers.

I think the above shows a commitment to keep POP even though it is declining in popularity in general. While we can't offer guarantees, we can say that we have no current plans to drop POP. I hope that helps.

jclarkw2 12 Mar 2018 08:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dbowdley (Post 605818)
...While we can't offer guarantees, we can say that we have no current plans to drop POP. I hope that helps.

Most definitely. Thanks again! -- jclarkw2

filbert 12 Mar 2018 05:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jclarkw2 (Post 605816)

Some of us dinosaurs still like to download and store all our e-mail on our own computers.

I use IMAP but I still download all my messages and keep offline copies, so I don't see that as being an advantage of POP3. I do make great use of the ability to read my email from a range of devices and IMAP does make that simple.

I'm struggling to think of any real advantages of POP over IMAP... I'd be interested to hear what they might be.

dbowdley 12 Mar 2018 07:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by filbert (Post 605822)
I'm struggling to think of any real advantages of POP over IMAP... I'd be interested to hear what they might be.

From my point of view I would say that it all depends on how you want to work with your email. I personally prefer IMAP, but POP does make some things easier such as:
  1. Removing mail from the server after it is downloaded or automatically after a specified period of time.
  2. Allowing you to use email plans that have less storage if you are automatically removing the mail from the server.
  3. With our "POP from folder" feature you can set up multiple POP accounts in an email client all from a single Runbox account and they will appear to have their own Inbox. This is particular useful with programs such as Outlook which doesn't support aliases very well (or at all in some opinions) when used with a single IMAP account. We actually use POP from folder ourselves for some of our internal systems.
I'm not saying you can't do any of the above with IMAP in one form or another, but we know some customers prefer POP for some or all of the reasons above.

jclarkw2 13 Mar 2018 12:02 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dbowdley (Post 605823)
From my point of view I would say that it all depends on how you want to work with your email...
  1. Removing mail from the server after it is downloaded or automatically after a specified period of time.
  2. Allowing you to use email plans that have less storage if you are automatically removing the mail from the server.
    ...
I'm not saying you can't do any of the above with IMAP in one form or another, but we know some customers prefer POP for some or all of the reasons above.

Amen.

Add to dbowdley's list:
4) You can still access previously received or sent email during Internet or server outages (as we had for a couple of days last weekend with Comcast), and
5) If you're security and privacy conscious, as I imagine most Runbox users are, then leaving all your e-mail in someone else's control (not that there's any real risk in the case of Runbox) might make you nervious.

From my archaic point of view, the main reason to use IMAP is to access the same e-mail store from multiple devices, not a problem I have or expect since I do everything from one laptop. -- jclarkw


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