IMAP Email

Status
Not open for further replies.
Joined
Dec 9, 2006
Messages
2,820
Location
Southeast Alabama
We have a desktop and two laptop computers and being retired travel quite a bit.

Our ISP at home does not offer IMAP Email only POP3. With POP3 when you check the email it is delivered from the mail server to whatever computer you use. With IMAP it stays on the mail server.

Have found the following free IMAP accounts. aim.com, gmail.com, lavabit.com, and gmx.com.

Of those I have had good luck both with aim and gmx. Others work fine too. aim allows unlimited storage.

I am sure that there are others.

We use Thunderbird in Linux and Windows. You can access them too by using a web browser.
 
Good information and I'm sure quite a few people will find this very useful.

Before GMail I used to use an email client but with GMail I have found that web-based email interface can be pretty good.
 
Gmail and imap is basically a great alternative to paying monthly for an email account.
 
You can setup POP3 to leave the mail on the server. It is a setting in the client usually.
 
GMail is easy, works and you can get it from any browser. There are Blackberry and Droid apps to get it, and you can POP it from MS Office. It's basically one stop shopping for a mail account.
 
Originally Posted By: tmorris1
You can setup POP3 to leave the mail on the server. It is a setting in the client usually.


True some offer that option but ours does not. Others offer it for 14 days before the mail is deleted, etc.

Reason that many ISPs don't offer IMAP is the storage factor costs.

I would rather use an email program like Thunderbird too than web mail. That way I can check all of my email accounts at the same time for new email.

Thunderbird is put out by the same folks as Firefox. There is versions for Linux, Mac O/S and Windows. I have tried others but like the fact that it is available for different platforms.

I have Thunderbird setup so it BCCs a copy to one of my IMAP accounts when I send email, etc.
 
I'd like to add a few comments in an attempt to be helpful.

1. Here is something unusual to watch out for. AOL and their free AIM offers IMAP mail. As the OP stated, AIM claims to offer unlimited storage. I've had AIM accounts for a few years and can confirm that all sent / received mail is still present in my account.

It is important to know that AOL, on the contrary, does not leave mail accessable for an unlimited time. I am not sure on this, but I believe the last I checked AOL deletes mail from their PAID user accounts after something like 90 days. Also, I saw where they sent messages to paying customers to "opt in" on something or sent mail would be disappearing after perhaps a shorter length of time. So, if you need to keep your mail for an indefinate length of time, go with the free AIM account if you prefer AOL type services.

2. I have a leased corporate server so I can set my own limits on my POP3 accounts. That said, I still prefer Gmail IMAP mail! Every time my account profile gets towards the specified storage limit Google just adds more GB to my storage space. I have also never experienced any "mail outages" when using Gmail. It always seems to be working.

Here is the best thing. I also use Thunderbird as my preferred e-mail software. Thunderbird works great with Gmail. As it is not uncommon for me to change computers, it is just a matter of installing Thunderbird, adding my Gmail accounts and then ALL of my sent/received mail magically appears. Since I work using several computers, I can always be certain that Gmail I send from work station A will always be present on netbook B, etc.

Gmail also does work with POP3 for those that do not need IMAP features. But, if you use POP3, then you need to manually back up and transfer your mail storage folders when moving to a new computer.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top