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When you set up email on a phone or in a program such as Outlook or Apple Mail, it asks whether you want IMAP or POP. If you read your email on more than one device, and almost everyone does now, the answer is IMAP.
The difference in one sentence
IMAP keeps your email on the server and shows every device the same mailbox. POP downloads your email to one device and, depending on its settings, deletes it from the server afterwards.
Why POP causes problems
POP was designed for a world where people had one computer. On a phone, a laptop and an office PC, it causes three familiar problems:
- Messages appear on one device and not the others, because whichever device checked first took them.
- Sent mail and folders don't sync. A reply sent from your phone never shows up on your laptop.
- Email can quietly disappear from the server. If the POP device is lost, stolen or replaced, years of email can go with it. This is how people lose their entire email history without realising anything had happened.
Why IMAP is better
- Every device shows the same inbox, folders and sent items.
- Read a message on your phone and it's marked as read everywhere.
- Your email is stored on the server, so a lost or broken device loses nothing.
- You can also read everything in webmail from any browser.
When POP still makes sense
Very rarely: if you only ever read email on one computer, and you want to keep a local archive because your mailbox is close to its storage limit. Even then, a better fix is usually to archive older mail into folders, or to increase the mailbox size.
Switching from POP to IMAP
You can't usually change an existing account from POP to IMAP in place. Instead:
- Back up first. If the POP device holds email that's no longer on the server, keep that device and its data safe until you've finished.
- Add the account again as IMAP, using the incoming and outgoing server settings from your mailbox's setup details.
- Check that the IMAP account shows your mail, then remove the old POP account from that device.
- Repeat on each device.
If old messages only exist on the POP device, they can be copied into the IMAP account's folders by dragging them across in your email program.
Settings for our Professional Email
If your mailboxes are on our Professional Email service, use these settings:
- Incoming (IMAP): imap.us.appsuite.cloud, port 993, SSL/TLS
- Outgoing (SMTP): smtp.us.appsuite.cloud, port 465, SSL/TLS
- Username: your full email address
- Password: your mailbox password
The POP server, if you really need it, is pop.us.appsuite.cloud on port 995. You can also read your email in any browser by logging in to OX App Suite from your client area.
Still stuck? Open a ticket and tell us which device and email program you're using.