Question

Think about how you view your emails—either the email service you use yourself or an email service you would choose to use. Describe that email service and then explain whether you use POP3 or IMAP to access your email. How do you know it’s POP3 as opposed to IMAP?

Answer 1

Answer:

and POP3, followed in later years. POP3 is still the current version of the protocol, though this is often shortened to just POP. While POP4 has been proposed, it's been dormant for a long time.

IMAP, or Internet Message Access Protocol, was designed in 1986. Instead of simply retrieving emails, it was created to allow remote access to emails stored on a remote server. The current version is IMAP4, though most interfaces don't include the number.

The primary difference is that POP downloads emails from the server for permanent local storage, while IMAP leaves them on the server while caching (temporarily storing) emails locally. In this way, IMAP is effectively a form of cloud storage.