What is an IMAP folder?

[David Culp]

Hello --

What is an IMAP folder?

Thanks!

* David Culp * Washington, D.C. * dc...@igc.org *

[Vince Averello [MVP-Outlook]]

A folder on an IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol) server. You can find
out more about IMAP in general here:
http://www.imap.org

David Culp <dc...@igc.org> wrote in message
news:uVN7e9FU#GA....@uppssnewspub04.moswest.msn.net...

[Travis Day]

This may be a little more than what you're asking for, but here goes:
(Other NG readers: Please add to or make corrections where necessary....)

An IMAP folder is mailbox folder used to store your email messages on an
IMAP server. The term "IMAP folder" can refer to either the actual folder
stored on the email server, OR a "copy" of the IMAP server folder which has
been downloaded to your PC (if you're want to work offline).

Email servers support many different methods for users to check their
email--two of the more popular methods are POP and IMAP. Many Email
applications (like Outlook and Outlook Express) support downloading email
using either POP or IMAP, depending on which protocol the email server will
support. Here's the difference:

IMAP servers let you store all your email messages in folders and subfolders
up on the email server, so that you can access the same folders and
subfolders, no matter what PC you use to access the IMAP email server. When
you download your email, you just download a copy of what's stored on the
IMAP email server.

With POP servers, your mail is downloaded from the server to whatever PC
you're using (so it's deleted from the server). If you're just using one PC
to access your email, then that's okay. But you wouldn't want to download
all your mail to your work PC and then not be able to go back and read it
from another location, like home. Since the email was downloaded to your
work PC, you can't refer back to any of those messages until you go back to
work.

Most recent versions of Email applications have an advanced option where, if
you use POP, you can choose to LEAVE A COPY of your email up on the server
(possible only with email servers and applications that support POP3). This
would come in handy for a lot of situations where you need to refer back to
your messages. But still, if you want to organize your email by storing
messages in subfolders, the messages in those subfolders are stored only on
the PC that you're using when you create the subfolders.

In my opinion, IMAP is a better alternative to
"POP-with-leave-a-copy-of-email-on-server". Not all email servers support
IMAP (most Internet Service do NOT support IMAP). IMAP is perfect for when
you need to check your email from many different computers, like in a
University setting where students access their email from different lab
computers. With IMAP, you can use any computer to check your email and all
messages and folders will be consistent. When you delete a message, it gets
deleted off the email server too. You can organize your mail into
sub-folders you've created (like "Saved" or "Personal") and those folders
will be accessible from anywhere. (If you use
"POP-with-leave-a-copy-of-email-on-server", it can get kind of confusing
trying to manage your email and keep your inbox clean, because when you
delete a message, you're actually just deleting the message off of the local
PC rather than deleting the one from the server.)

A newer revision of IMAP, called IMAP4, goes one step further and adds extra
features for allowing you to work in offline mode. Using IMAP in offline
mode, you can read email from any folder or subfolder which was downloaded
from the server. But you can't "manage your messages and folders" unless
you're connected to the server. IMAP4 lets you file messages in folders and
create subfolders while "offline," and then your changes will be
synchronized with the server the next time you connect In order for this
to work, both your email server and your email client (i.e. Outlook) need to
be IMAP4 compliant. As far as I know, Outlook still doesn't support IMAP4
functionality....

Outlook 98 (Internet Mail Only version) and Outlook Express (which comes
with Internet Explorer 4.0) both support IMAP. Outlook 97 will support
"POP-with-leave-a-copy-of-email-on-server", depending on what "version" of
Outlook 97 you have. To set this up in OL97, select Tools, Services, Add,
Internet Email…. If there are four tabs under the Mail Account Properties,
you're good to go. (The option to "Leave a copy of messages on server" is
under the "Advanced" tab.) If you only have two tabs of options (no
"Advanced" tab), then you need to download the "Internet Mail Enhancement
Patch" from the following website:
http://officeupdate.microsoft.com/nonIE4/DownloadDetails/outlimepnonie4.htm

--

Travis Day
Kenan-Flagler Business School
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
travi...@ERASE-THISunc.edu

David Culp wrote in message ...
Hello --

What is an IMAP folder?

Thanks!

[Travis Day]

Wow! I sure could have saved myself a lot of typing if I had seen your post
sooner...I'll be sure to add that website to my favorites. ;-)

--

Travis Day
Kenan-Flagler Business School
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
travi...@ERASE-THISunc.edu

Vince Averello [MVP-Outlook] wrote in message ...

>A folder on an IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol) server. You can find
>out more about IMAP in general here:
>http://www.imap.org
>
>David Culp <dc...@igc.org> wrote in message
>news:uVN7e9FU#GA....@uppssnewspub04.moswest.msn.net...

[Vince Averello [MVP-Outlook]]

I try... :-)

Travis Day <travi...@ERASE-THISunc.edu> wrote in message
news:#wbQO#GU#GA....@uppssnewspub05.moswest.msn.net...

[Ian Burnell]

One point of caution about IMAP....
...most ISP's/Universities/etc are quite restrictive about allocating
space on the server. In some setups messages may bounce once you reach
your allocation, so IMAP requires a little more thought than POP in
general housekeeping and making sure you don't exceed your server
allocation. Given that most of my users have .pst files in the tens-
of-MB range exceeding your server allocation shouldn't take too
long...

Ian

travi...@ERASE-THISunc.edu wrote

> This may be a little more than what you're asking for, but here goes:
> (Other NG readers: Please add to or make corrections where necessary....)
>
> An IMAP folder is mailbox folder used to store your email messages on an
> IMAP server. The term "IMAP folder" can refer to either the actual folder
> stored on the email server, OR a "copy" of the IMAP server folder which has

> been downloaded to your PC (if you're want to work offline).... <snip>