What is the difference between the IMAP protocol and the POP protocol?

POP: Short for the Post Office Protocol. POP3 does not support the expansion of messages on the server, which is done by the more advanced IMAP4. POP3 uses TCP as the transport protocol and the port number is 110.

IMAP: Short for Internet Mail Access Protocol interactive mail access protocol. The IMAP protocol runs on top of the TCP/IP protocol and uses a port of 143. The main difference between it and the POP3 protocol is that the user does not have to download all the mails, and can directly operate the mail on the server through the client.

Similar to the POP3 protocol, IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol) is also a user-oriented mail collection service. The commonly used version is IMAP4. IMAP4 improves the deficiencies of POP3. Users can browse the letter header to decide whether to collect, delete and retrieve specific parts of the mail. You can also create or change folders or mailboxes on the server. In addition to the offline operation mode that supports POP3 protocol. Also supports online operations and disconnected operations. It provides users with the ability to selectively receive mail from a mail server, server-based information processing, and shared mailbox functionality. IMAP4's offline mode is different from POP3. It does not automatically delete the deleted mail on the mail server. Its online mode and disconnected mode also make the mail server access as a “remote file server”, which is more flexible and convenient.

In fact, it is simple, if you do not make a special setting for the client, by default, if you use the POP3 protocol to download mail, all the mail on the server will be downloaded to the client, and on the server. Will no longer be stored.

But IMAP downloads by default but does not delete files on the mail server.

In fact, IMAP is better than POP in comparison.

At present, there are more mailboxes for providing IMAP in China, but the mailbox of 163 is the earliest provided