During college, I got used to using IMAP, rather than POP, for my email. The fact that mail was safely (?) on a server, rather than my laptop, was a big plus, as well as the convenience of reading and managing my email from any of several machines. Yes, webmail can work, but I haven't seen any that are very useful.

Now that I'm shopping for a host for my corporate email, I'm wondering why I don't see IMAP as an option from very many hosts. Is it still too new? Are there security/liability/reliablity issues? Do too few customers want it?

Very interested to know if I should pursue this in my prospective host.

Many hosts offer this even if they don't advertise it. Pick a host that you are comfortable with and just ask.

A lot of hosts didn't used to offer it because it didn't come standard with CPanel. Now that it is standard, I think you'll find that a lot more hosts offer it.

Cough.. Hotmail uses foundry IMAP for their client/server end mail system. Yahoo also offers IMAP/POP3 services at a price

True, hotmail is not really true IMAP though. I guess what I meant to say is there are not many free services. Sorry for the mistake.

The IMAP protocol took a while to settle down. The majority marketshare of the IMAP clients "out there" (Outlook Express and Outlook) are not that great when it comes to IMAP.

Mulberry (www.cyrusoft.com) offers the best and most precise IMAP support; but not too many people, relatively speaking, use that client.

We had two requests for it in two years, so it's a specialized request for sure. As mentioned though cpanel hosts offer it now as it's been included in the update so there will be a lot more offering it soon. We have at least one customer using it, and reports that it works fine, so your choices are pretty wide now. In most cases I think you'll find that hosting sites that use cpanel just haven't updated their feature list yet.

Greg Moore

I prefer IMAP over POP3. But, few clients implement the protocol properly. I've had problems with Outlook Express in the past.

I've used IMAP with Outlook Express for years against multiple IMAP servers and had no problems whatsoever.

I'm sure there are some server/client issues, but I've been fortunate apparently and not seen any.

-t

Originally posted by thewitt
I've used IMAP with Outlook Express for years against multiple IMAP servers and had no problems whatsoever.
...

That's part of the problem. The IMAP servers have tended to accomodate the more popular IMAP clients, even if it means not implementing the IMAP protocol properly.

Outlook Express and Outlook do not work well with an IMAP server that implements a tight interpretation iof the IMAP protocol.

first time I ever heard of imap, pop3 works fine for me, I do like web based emials a lot more though

Some hosts just dont want the storage such as sent mail options. I offered imap and then people complained it didnt save sent mail...I really dont want to store everyones sent mail...

first time I ever heard of imap, pop3 works fine for me, I do like web based emials a lot more though


IMAP stands for Internet Message Access Protocol. It is a method of accessing electronic mail or bulletin board messages that are kept on a (possibly shared) mail server. In other words, it permits a "client" email program to access remote message stores as if they were local. For example, email stored on an IMAP server can be manipulated from a desktop computer at home, a workstation at the office, and a notebook computer while traveling, without the need to transfer messages or files back and forth between these computers.

Courtesy : http://www.imap.org/

thanks for the info, I'll stick with pop3, seems the best for me :)

almost all clients use it.
if it ain't broken don't fix it :)

99.9% of people will probably always use POP (I know I do). IMAP is interesting - something between a mail server and a newsgroup at first glance. POP has the advantage of you being able to just set your computer to download mail as it comes, and check it later.

Having said that we have customers who ask where the address to webmail is and almost never log into their control panels again, or even think of setting up POP, let alone IMAP. cpanel's quite good in that it appeals to almost everyone in one way or another.

Greg Moore

I think jay hit the nail on the head. A lot of hosts don't offer it because most control panels haven't installed/managed it.

It's actually rather easy to install with sendmail, and only slightly difficult to install with qmail (from source). RPMs are always easy to install.

I find it shocking that so many people post that their customers don't request it, and that users are posting that they're going to stick with POP3. I LOVE IMAP and use it all the time. Also, SquirrelMail (the best web based email client) requires it. I think that your typical IMAP user is slightly more of a power user (for email anyway) than your average POP3 user. They require more out of their email. IMAP especially works well for travelers. There is obvious demand for it, as proven by vesuve's request.

We've offered it since we started offering hosting in 1997, so it's not some new technology. I partially blame the lack of IMAP users to Outlook Express, which works great as an IMAP client, it just won't let you change a POP3 account to an IMAP account. You have to recreate the account. Also, POP3 is the default server type when creating accounts. Most users don't even know what POP or IMAP service is, they just blindly configure their email client like their host tells them to. "What do you mean pop server? I just want to check my email."

Now that CPanel gives IMAP a whole lot of IMAP hosts will mushroom out there! :)

Both IMP and Squirrelmail need IMAP and I agree with Mark that it is a far superior protocol to pop3.

But it is not so difficult as it looks.


With qmail you can install courier-imap and then squirrelmail [as we have done]

Personally I am of the opinion that control panels create more problems than they solve.

CPanel especially gives a LOT of features to the end user and the reseller , but some of them can be potential dynamites like anon FTP or chat rooms..

I also dont know how wise it is to let users run cron jobs.

This may be a *little* off-topic or maybe not... :)

Although I have a WONDERFUL host, and I use their POP email everyday, I also pay for another WONDERFUL email service called FastMail.Fm. They support both IMAP and POP. They have different plans, one of them is Guest and it's FREE. The nice thing about this is that you can use IMAP for the Guest account!!!

Their site can be accessed here:

http://www.fastmail.fm/

Here's a link to their plans:

http://www.fastmail.fm/docs/pricingtbl.html

They have a great forum community where BOTH the developers and the clients are very much involved. Here's the link:

http://www.emailaddresses.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=17

vesuve - I believe they also offer services to companies. So you might want to check that out.

I thought I mention them for all of you IMAP lovers. ;)

Jessica

Approx 90% of our clients use IMAP as they can then use webmail to access all of their folders (incl sent mail) and they love the fact that if they change their PC they don't have to backup their mail folders locally, just add the account and all the mail comes back down to their box. We do this by saying "We allow 100Meg of mail storage per hosting account but with this you can have as many users as you wish as long as in total you keep below the 100Meg"

The main niggle with Outlook Express and IMAP for me has always been the darn "You have new mail" tray icon popping up constantly even if you don't have new mail - OE gets easily confused. Have been hoping M$ will fix that for years now. Having said that - been using it for years as the advantages over POP3 are huge.

Another advantage of IMAP is that multiple users can share the same mail account (support@ or sales@ etc) and each will have a copy of all sent mail and other folders locally and/or via webmail.