After years of knowing nothing but POP servers, the wonders of IMAP have been revealed to me. The Computer and Networking Services (CNS) at the University of Toronto employ IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol) for its email, rather than the POP (Post Office Protocol) that we all knew–and were frustrated with–at St Andrews. Emory University must also use IMAP, because I remember an Emory student complaining about how antiquated St Andrews’ email service was.
The end result is realized when one sets up the two versions in an email client (MS Outlook, Thunderbird, Messenger, etc.). I have both my about-to-expire St Andrews POP email and my new UTOR IMAP email set up in Outlook right now and the difference is amazing. The IMAP system is so much easier to deal with; I don’t have choose whether to erase messages off the server, nor is there the migraine-inducing possibility of downloading multiple copies of all my messages. They stay there on the server, and simply synchronize with one’s client software. It’s brilliant. Sure, it takes up memory and the UTOR servers must be enormous to handle this. But our tuition dollars more than make up the difference!
