POP3 vs IMAP - which is better for me?

[jamess]

In a few days I'll be setting up a new ThinkPad. Amongst many, I have a question regarding my email.

I will be using Office 2007 and therefore Outlook as my mail program.

I've been using POP3 for years now, but I've realised that IMAP might be a good choice given that I use my thinkpad laptop, desktop, my cell phone and various other locations to access my email.

However, my (server) mailbox is only 200 MB in size. Since i handle a lot of email and it takes about 3 GB/year, I can't have ALL my mail residing in server mailbox.

Since I haven't really used IMAP and don't know how it handles big emails with attachements etc., I'd be happy if you can share a thought.

Also - if I use IMAP, can I simply have say about 14 days of recent emails stored in my mailbox on the server and "transfer" the rest to local repository for archive in outlook 2007 or not?

Help appreciated.

[jdhurst]

IMAP stores your email on someone else's server and not on your PC. So you need to be really certain of the integrity and longevity of the supplier. Also you need to be connected to get your email.

Oddly enough, I had it suggested to me by people I still know and use (although now a different company and server). I thought about it and felt then and continue to feel now that POP is a better approach for an individual.

I have mail in my current Outlook file going back to 1996. I started internet email in late 1994 so I have most of it. I have not had the same supplier all that time, so IMAP just would not have worked for me. ... JDH

[jamess]

I was actually thinking of having only the very recent emails on my provider's server and moving all the rest into my local inbox folder. However I don't know if that "goes" ok and also if that's not just more steps to be taken. I usually only delete emails with huge attachements and save them where they belong but I keep the rest.

As for the outlook and your email dating so far back... Based on your experience, outlook should handle big inbox pst file fine? I've had a crash a couple of years ago supposedly because of the outlook 2003 inbox file growing too big. I've used ThunderBird after that which was supposed to handle big inbox folder better... but have recently decided to go back to outlook once again... and now the question is IMAP or POP3...

[jdhurst]

If you have most of your email in Outlook and only a few in IMAP, then I don't think there is much point to it. Yes it will work, but it is not taking advantage of IMAP.

Outlook 2003 should be able to handle a 2Gb .PST file. Mine is about 800 Mb. Sometime I should archive some of the stuff.
... JDH

[jamess]

I guess I'll just stick to POP3 and simply check "leave on server" on the devices/PCs other than my "primary" PC = thinkpad.

Thanks

[tomh009]

Outlook 2003 should be able to handle a 2Gb .PST file. Mine is about 800 Mb. Sometime I should archive some of the stuff.

Outlook 2003 handles PST files up to 20 GB, assuming it's the new Unicode format (the default in Outlook 2003). I have some 15 GB of archived email (in multiple PST files) myself ...

[jdhurst]

What I do (to answer your last point) is use Pop Tray. This is a little daemon that runs in the system tray and collects email. You can delete from Pop Tray if you don't need the email anywhere.

I then set Outlook on both computers to "Leave the mail on the server". At the end of the day, when I can see I have downloaded email to both computers, I use Pop Tray to delete the whole lot.

This is also convenient because I use a BlackBerry in addition to two computers.
... JDH

[jamess]

@jd: thanks for that last input, will consider this tray gadget, because I too use my Nokia to access email when on the move.

[jdhurst]

Another tip for Outlook users (POP, Exchange, or IMAP): You can open an email that contains an attachement, save the attachment, and then remove it from the email without deleting the email. You can even add a comment in the email to say where you saved the attachment.

Why? Attachments account for the vast bulk of space in email files. Text emails are very small. ... JDH

[rkawakami]

Uhh.... what has this to do with Vista?

P.S. You can delete this post when you figure out which conference is best. I think Off Topic is right but I'll leave that up to you guys.

[jamess]

Well I did not want to put it under hardware and since I'll be running Vista, I put it under vista I guess.

If you think it's completely off topic then please move it to "Off topic". I don't have the "power" to do so myself.