IMAP = Indispensable Mail Access Protocol

The reason why IMAP is so Indispensable, compared to the POP3 Mail Protocol, is due to the fact that IMAP has the ability to sort various mail into subfolders on the server side! POP3, on the other hand, has severe disadvantages: mail is only delivered through a single folder, causing the user to have to a) sort through the large amount of mails b) organize mails into seperate folders on the client side ONLY or c) delete almost all mail to decrease the size of the sole mail Inbox. POP3 access usually deletes messages after they are downloaded from the server also.

IMAP seems to be the viable solution for this predicament. Mails can be sorted on the server side so that the user can have shared folders among any mail program that is used: whether it be a mail client(Mozilla Mail), a webmail client(Squirrelmail, Horde IMP), or even a command-line utility(Pine).

It is nice to be able to check your mail from all different places, while having the messages flagged as SPAM placed in their proper place: the spam/junk folder.

It seems to be a good call to switch from POP3 to IMAP. Users should still be able to use either protocol to access the same mail, so... it is a user preference at hand.

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