POP (Post Office Protocol) ***Recommended

The POP protocol was originally designed around the offline mail delivery model due to the high costs of having to stay online to retrieve mail. With POP, users connect on to their mail server, download the mail to their local computer, disconnect from the server letting them read the emails while offline. Emails are stored on the server until the user downloads the mail using a mail client such as Microsoft Outlook or Eudora.

Preferred POP Settings

One option in the POP3 standard is the option to “Leave mail on server” after downloading it. This gives users similar advantages as IMAP by leaving the email on the server after downloading it, to be accessed from other mail clients. If leaving mail on the server is something that you require, then we strongly recommend configuring your email to use the IMAP protocol as it allows server side email manipulation as well. We do not recommend the “Leave mail on server” option if using the POP3 protocol. When implemented, this feature forces the downloading of the same emails many times which can drain bandwidth, server resources and client disk space.

Make sure there is not a checkmark next to “Leave a copy of messages on the server”

Today’s mail clients such as Microsoft Outlook, let their users schedule automatic Send/Receive functions at desired intervals. We suggest that users on our platform set theirs to check for new mail every 15 minutes.

POP Advantages

• The POP protocol allows a user to store their email locally. This allows a user that is not connected to the Internet to still access and read downloaded email.
  
• POP email is less intensive on the server side. Using POP mail frees up server disk space because it downloads emails and attachments then deletes them from the email server.
  
• POP email is multi-system friendly. For many users that have older systems their email clients will most likely not run IMAP mail, therefore POP email will be their only choice.

POP Disadvantages

• POP email was designed for use with a single email client on a single computer. Even though there are “leave-mail-on-server” enhancements of new POP servers and clients, when implemented, this feature forces the downloading of the same emails many times which can drain bandwidth, server resources and client disk space.