"The Great Debate" - POP vs IMAP (fork of Mail Problems)

[David Zhou]

On Oct 5, 2006, at 1:31 PM, Scot Hacker wrote:

> On Oct 5, 2006, at 9:38 AM, David Zhou wrote:
>
>> IMO, POP is only simpler if you consistently use a single machine  
>> to check your email.
>>
>> I juggle between work and home machines, and syncing up email  
>> would be a pain if not for IMAP.
>
> Seems like IMAP is a double-edged sword. Ideal for keeping work and  
> home and webmail  all in sync. But most providers don't give you  
> unlimited server  space to store your mail.

I think that the rate of increases in cheap storage is going to  
outrun increases in mail size in the future -- if only because text  
is still the primary content of email.  Even with pictures, I have a  
feeling that available space if going to increase faster than most  
people can use.  I don't see video as becoming that big in the email  
arena.

To take your Gmail example, in 10 years time, if Gmail is still  
around, it will probably offer much more than just 2GB of space.   
Heck, with current advances in hard drive and storage technology, who  
knows how much space will be available?

> So if you want a complete and permanent archive of all kept mail  
> both at work and home, IMAP doesn't get you there* unless you   
> manually drag mail off the server into local archive folders.

This is more of a IMAP client problem than anything with the  
protocol.  It'd be very simple for an email client to have an  
"archive all email of this account" command, and simply suck  
everything from the IMAP account into an archive.

> That's fine for geeks, but what I've learned from dealing with  
> customers is that most people (yes, most) are totally confused by  
> the idea that some mailboxes are on their hard drive, some on the  
> server, how and when to drag stuff off, etc. POP solves this  
> problem easily if you have it not delete mail from the server at  
> work and delete it after say two weeks at home.

This is true, but negates the primary benefit of IMAP -- not just  
having email available at any machine, but having your email folders  
and structure available at any machine.

---
David Zhou
david at nodnod.net