E Street mail servers support both POP and IMAP email protocols. Below is a brief description explaining the pros/cons of each. Most users will want to choose POP when configuring their email accounts but IMAP could be better option for some users.
Configuring with POP: A POP account will download mail from the server and store it on your devices. The main advantage to a POP account is that it allows you keep messages stored on your devices for as long as you’d like and it keeps your mailbox/disk space usage low. With a POP account you never have to worry about your mailbox filling up or exceeding your disk space limit because the POP account will remove old copies of your mail from the server. You can download all of your incoming messages to multiple devices (e.g. a phone and computer) using POP accounts but other folders (like your Sent or Trash folders) won’t be synced across your devices (i.e. if you delete a message on your phone that same message will remain on your computer).
Configuring with IMAP: An IMAP account will sync all of your folders to the server and across your different devices (if all devices are configured as IMAP accounts). The advantage to an IMAP account is that the folders will sync, so deleting a message off one device will remove it from the other and the Sent folder (and any other IMAP folders you create) will sync and be the same across all of your devices. The major disadvantage to using IMAP accounts is that it uses a lot more disk space because it keeps everything on the server and if you’re not careful your mailbox can get completely full which would prevent you from receiving new mail.
Which should I use?
What it really comes down to is how important is it for other folders (Sent, Trash, custom folders) to sync across multiple devices. If this is very important to you then IMAP is the answer. If syncing those other folders isn’t important to you and you only care about getting all of your incoming mail on both devices then POP is the answer as it requires less maintenance and allows each device to store its own copy of the mail. If you do choose to use an IMAP account you will need to perform regular maintenance by deleting/archiving unneeded messages to prevent disk space issues.
Need more powerful features with your business email?
E Street also offers advanced enterprise mail servers with hosted MS Exchange type features such as; shared calendars, shared contacts, Chat (IM), and more. See: https://www.estreet.com/downloads/EStreet_Kerio-Connect-Datasheet15.pdf
and contact your E Street representative!
