I enjoy listening to Adam Turner’s view from the couch, and one of his articles from years ago still rings true today.

Friends don’t let friends use POP3 was an article written about the use of POP3 vs. IMAP – the two most common email protocols in use today. The crux of the post was the POP3 is an old protocol which transfers your mail from one location to another – which was fine when we all used one computer but in today’s world of smartphones, tablets and laptops we need synchronised email across ALL devices.

Now I have seen some exceptions – sometimes POP3 can be told to ‘leave a copy on the server’ – but in my book that’s just a kludge. IMAP was designed for synchronisation and that’s what we should all be using. POP3 used this way won’t synchronise your folders nor whether or not you’ve read a message.

How can you tell you’re using POP3? If your messages are delivered to one device OR the other, chances are you’re using POP3. If the messages go to ALL devices at the same time, you’re already on IMAP.

So – switch to IMAP if you haven’t already. Cloud-synchronised email for all.

Adam Turner

Adam’s website