IMAP which stands for Internet Message Access Protocol is an alternate but better method of accessing and managing your email. While this protocol has been around since ever, it was seldom implemented by any of the free web email services mainly because allowing people to access their mail using IMAP put an additional strain on the server.
But IMAP has a lot of advantages over its poorer cousins POP and POP3. For one, like with POP, people using IMAP protocol can also access and manage their mail using any of the numerous email clients such as Thunderbird and outlook express but the difference being that any changes you make to your mail in your email client is propagated to and mirrored in your email account at the server end in real time. Secondly, you can view your mail from multiple devices and still you will have access to the same structure. Mails will not be downloaded multiple times as it sometimes happen in using POP. Overall, IMAP provides a more stable experience than POP.
So the big news is Google has finally rolled out IMAP support for Gmail users. But having been using the web interface with the spify Ajax and Javascript effects, I am in two minds on whether to use IMAP or stick for the time being with the web interface of my Gmail account.
Fig: My Gmail settings show the IMAP in the Forwarding email tab section.If you are opting for IMAP, there are a few things to keep in mind. Them being the actions you take in your email client and their effects in your Gmail account . Here is a table of what you can expect when you take certain actions in your email client.
| Action on mobile device/client (e.g. iPhone/Outlook) | Result in Gmail on the web |
|---|---|
| Open a message | Mark a message as read |
| Flag a message | Apply a star to the message |
| Move a message to a folder | Apply a label to the message |
| Move a message to a folder within a folder | Apply a label showing folder hierarchy ('MainFolder/SubFolder') |
| Create a folder | Create a label |
| Move a message to [Gmail]/Spam | Report a message as spam |
| Move a message to [Gmail]/Trash | Move a message to Trash |
| Send a message | Store message in Sent Mail |
| Delete a message | Remove label from the message, or delete the message permanently if the message is already in the Spam or Trash label |
[Source: Gmail FAQ]
Lastly I wonder where this puts the other major free email providers like Yahoo and Microsoft's New Hotmail which let alone do not provide IMAP but also fall short on numerous other features which are standard in Gmail. As of now Yahoo is the most used email service in the world but if Google would have its way, this is going to change in the near future.
