[X4U] Can Apple's Mail pick up GMail?

[Andrew T. Lynch]

>From the referenced website: 

"IMAP is a good choice for people who need access to their e-mail from home, the office, the road, and anywhere else. If you were to check your e-mail from three different computers via IMAP, all three of those computers, and the e-mail server, would contain all of your e-mail. If you chose to delete a message from computer A, it would also be removed from computer B, computer C, and the e-mail server."

So, if you access your email from more than one client, IMAP keeps it in synch.  POP does not.  If you access your email from only one client, IMAP has little if any benefit.  

The mail is kept on the server, which can fill up, but so can your home machine.  And, with IMAP you always have the choice of moving messages off the server into a folder "On My Mac", much as POP does.  The server also may have a better backup strategy than your home machine.

I access my email using Mail.app from a laptop and two desktops.  I also access it from my work PC using a web browser.  I need IMAP.  If I only acessed my email from my home machine, I might use POP.

-Drew

---
Andrew T. Lynch


 
On Tuesday, September 30, 2008, at 09:53AM, "Linda" <xpressobean at mac.com> wrote:
>On 9/30/08 11:26 AM, Andrew T. Lynch wrote:
>
>> This is a pretty good description of IMAP vs POP
>
>I read a bunch of the IMAP vs POP sites before I asked my question. Now I'm
>asking the *benefits* of IMAP. I know what it is, but I can't tell from all
>of these pages what the benefits are. For example, if I want to access an
>email from one year ago, with IMAP I have to leave it on the server, right?
>The server will fill up eventually. I just don't see the benefits of IMAP
>over POP, given how they both work, and was hoping someone could explain the
>benefits of IMAP.
>
>
>_______________________________________________
>X4U mailing list
>X4U at listserver.themacintoshguy.com
>http://listserver.themacintoshguy.com/mailman/listinfo/x4u
>
>Seven Cent Deals - Great legacy stuff Great Legacy Price 
>http://www.drbott.com/prod/db.lasso?cat=Seven+Cent+Deal
>
>