POP and IMAP Options

[MrDolphin]

Im not sure where this should go, so Im sorry if its in the wrong place in advance.

Can someone explain to me what POP and IMAP are? Im installing Thunderbird and yeah, Im a noob in these kinds of things. Also, like I need help in figuring out which one I have. Thx in advance.

[*mipadi*]

POP is an email access protocol that allows you to retrieve messages from an email server. IMAP is another such protocol. You'll have to check with your server to see which protocol is available, but on most mail servers, both POP and IMAP are supported. (Note that mail accounts such as Hotmail or Yahoo! do not support POP or IMAP unless you pay extra for that service.)

There are some differences, but POP is generally considered an "offline" mail processing protocol, meaning your client (Thunderbird) will connect briefly to a server, download mail, delete that mail from the server, and disconnect. IMAP is more "interactive;" it leaves a connection to the server open, and you generally makes changes to mail on server and your local machine. It also offers greater flexibility with some advanced features.

I, too, use Thunderbird, and I prefer using POP to access my mail. As I said, most mail servers support both POP and IMAP, but if you're not sure, go with POP; almost all mail servers at least support POP access (excepting, of course, webmail services, as noted above).