IMAP ... POP ... email can be fairly confusing
It’s ironic that email is one of the most popular internet tools, but also one of the most complicated. I usually sense a rising level of confusion when I explain that someone is using one of two basic types of email, or a combination of the two, or both at the same time.
The oldest type of email is called POP. This type usually involves using the email account supplied by your Internet Service Provider (ISP) and the part of the email address after the @ symbol will be unique to the company. For instance Bell addresses are usually sympatico.ca, Cogeco uses cogeco. ca, and Nexicom is nexicom.net.
POP messages are downloaded from your ISP’s servers using an email program and stored on your computer until you delete them. One of the earliest free email clients was Microsoft’s Outlook Express, later replaced by Windows Live Mail, whereas Outlook comes bundled with Microsoft’s Office suite of programs. A popular free alternative is Mozilla Thunderbird (www.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird) which looks very much like Outlook Express.
One advantage of using an email program is you don’t have to be connected to the Internet to read your old messages or compose new ones. An internet connection is necessary only briefly to get and send messages, which is handy if you’re using a dial-up connection or a cruise ship’s expensive internet.
If you need help finding out how to setup an email program such as Thunderbird on your computer or mobile device visit either the Cogeco Help site (http://tinyurl.com/hyov8z4), Nexicom’s support site (http://kb.nexicom. net/?cat=5), Bell’s Knowledge Base (http://tinyurl.com/joxo96l), or check your ISP’s website.
The other type of email is IMAP, commonly called webmail. Three popular free webmail companies are Hotmail, Gmail, and Yahoo Mail and you access your email by using a web browser, such as Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, or Google Chrome to log into the webmail website. All of your messages are stored on the webmail servers and you’ll need an internet connection to read, compose, and send email.
Those are the two types of email, but how you access your email has become fraught with multiple and confusing choices.
For instance, you can access your POP mail as webmail. When you’re travelling you can get your email by going to your ISP’s website and logging into its webmail service. You can get and send email from any computer connected to the internet and when you get home any messages you didn’t delete will be available for download and storage by your email program.
Microsoft has been actively promoting webmail and especially its own Outlook.com which includes Live and Hotmail. Thus Outlook Express is gone and Windows Live Mail 2012 was discontinued last month. The Mail program that’s included with Windows 8.1 or 10 is designed to get your webmail from Outlook, Gmail, Yahoo, or iCloud. It can be set up to get your POP messages although the app lacks most of the extensive settings and features of an email program such as Thunderbird or Windows Live Mail.
If you use an iPad, iPhone, or Android mobile device the default email program is actually quite good and will access both webmail and POP accounts and provide useful configuration options. There are also other mobile email apps available such as Google’s Inbox which is configured specifically for Gmail. Emails are downloaded from your webmail or POP account and stored on the tablet or smart phone and when you delete a message on your Android device it’s usually deleted from your webmail or POP account as well.
Google’s Gmail will let you combine both types of email. Gmail can be set to get email from your POP account and if you reply through Gmail your POP email address will be displayed in the From field so that the recipient will reply to your usual email address rather than Gmail. Instructions are at the Google Gmail Help site (https:// support.google.com/mail).
Thunderbird can download email from several POP and webmail accounts at the same time and organize everything in separate folders. There are instructions at the Thunderbird site (https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/products/ thunderbird).
Ray Saitz, a Peterborough resident and teacher, writes a regular column on the Internet. He can be reached at rayser3@cogeco.ca