Comparing Two Approaches to Remote Mailbox Access: IMAP vs. POP

Written 93.11.05
Revised 95.09.18
Editor's note 02.01.24: some of the RFCs noted in this paper have been superseded. Please refer to the index of RFCs and drafts for the latest versions.

There are several different approaches to building a distributed electronic mail infrastructure. Among them: shared file-system strategies, proprietary LAN-based protocols, the X.400 P7 protocol, and the Internet message access protocols. The purpose of this paper is to briefly consider the Internet-based protocols: POP (Post Office Protocol), DMSP (Distributed Mail System Protocol), and IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol). Of the three, POP is the oldest and consequently the best known. DMSP is largely limited to a single application, PCMAIL, and is known primarily for its excellent support of "disconnected" operation. IMAP offers a superset of POP and DMSP capabilities, and provides good support for all three modes of remote mailbox access: offline, online, and disconnected. (See RFC-1733 for definitions.)

POP was designed to support "offline" mail processing. In the offline paradigm, mail is delivered to a (usually shared) server, and a personal computer user periodically invokes a mail "client" program that connects to the server and downloads all of the pending mail to the user's own machine. Thereafter, all mail processing is local to the client machine. Think of the offline access mode as a kind of store-and-forward service, intended to move mail (on demand) from the mail server (drop point) to a single destination machine, usually a PC or Mac. Once delivered to the PC or Mac, the messages are then deleted from the mail server. Although the limitations of offline access have triggered interest in using POP in online mode, POP simply doesn't have some of the functionality needed for high-quality online (or disconnected) operation. Indeed, POP's "pseudo online" mode of operation, wherein client programs leave mail on the server, often depends on pervasive availability of a remote file system protocol in order for the mail client to access or update saved-message folders or message state information such as status flags.

IMAP can also do offline processing, but its special strength is in online and disconnected operation. In online mode, mail is again delivered to a shared server, but the mail client does not copy it all at once and then delete it from the server. It's more of an interactive client-server model, where the client can ask the server for headers, or the bodies of specified messages, or to search for messages meeting certain criteria. Messages in the mail repository can be marked with various status flags (e.g. "deleted" or "answered") and they stay in the repository until explicitly removed by the user --which may not be until a later session. In short: IMAP is designed to permit manipulation of remote mailboxes as if they were local. Depending on the IMAP client implementation and the mail architecture desired by the system manager, the user may save messages directly on the client machine, or save them on the server, or be given the choice of doing either.

While offline and online mailers both allow access to new incoming messages on the mail server from a variety of different client platforms, the similarities stop there. The two paradigms reflect different requirements and styles of use and they don't mix very well. Offline works best for people who use a single client machine all the time; it is not well-suited for the goals of accessing one's inbox of recent messages or saved-message folders from different machines at different times. That's because if you use offline ("download and delete") mail access from different computers at different times, your mail tends to get scattered across the different computers, unless they are all linked to a common network file system (in which case your access mode is really more online than offline.) On the other hand, the chief virtue of offline access is that it minimizes use of server resources and connect time when used via dialup.

Summarizing the differences between online and offline access paradigms:

• Offline and online paradigms reflect two distinct modes of use:
  -Offline = on-demand retrieval to a single client machine.
  -Online = interactive access to multiple mailboxes from multiple clients.
  
• Offline paradigm advantages:
  -Minimum use of connect time.
  -Minimum use of server resources.
  
• Online paradigm advantages: -Ability to use different computers at different times.
  -Ability to use "data-less" client machines, as in labs.
  -Platform-independent access to multiple mailboxes.
  -Possibility of concurrent access to shared mailboxes.
  

The essential point is that with the online paradigm, one's incoming and archive message folders are stored on a server and may be accessed uniformly from different computers at different times, without relying on general purpose file system protocols (which are not uniformly available on all platforms, and which may also introduce performance and file locking problems). This is not an important goal for those who always use the same computer to access their email, but it is a very important one for those who use multiple computers.

With that background, here is a brief comparison of POP and IMAP technologies:

• Characteristics common to both POP and IMAP:
  -Both can support offline operation.
  -Mail is delivered to a shared, "always up" mail server.
  -New mail accessible from a variety of client platform types.
  -New mail accessible from anywhere in network.
  -Protocols are open; defined by Internet RFCs.
  -Freely available implementations (including source) available.
  -Clients available for PCs, Macs, and Unix.
  -Commercial implementations available.
  -Internet oriented; no SMTP mail gateways required.
  -Protocols deal with access only; both rely on SMTP to send.
  -Both support persistent message IDs (for disconnected operation).
  
• POP protocol advantages:
  -Simpler protocol; easier to implement.
  -More client software currently available.
  
• IMAP protocol advantages:
  -Can manipulate persistent message status flags.
  -Can store messages as well as fetch them.
  -Can access and manage multiple mailboxes.
  -Can support concurrent updates and access to shared mailboxes.
  -Suitable for accessing non-email data; e.g., NetNews, documents.
  -Can also use offline paradigm, for minimum connect time and disk use.
  -Companion protocol defined for user configuration management (IMSP).
  -Constructs to permit online performance optimization, especially over low-speed links.
  

Elaborating on these points:

IMAP can manipulate persistent message status flags. These include flags such as "Seen", "Deleted", "Answered", as well as user-defined flags.

IMAP can store messages as well as fetch them. One can append a message from an incoming message folder to an archive folder (or vice versa).

IMAP can access and manage multiple mailboxes. This includes the ability to name and access different incoming and archive message folders, but also the ability to list, create, delete, and rename them. These mailboxes can be on the same server or on different servers. An IMAP client may allow you to see them at the same time, and move messages from one to the other.

IMAP can support concurrent updates and access to shared mailboxes. This capability is useful when multiple individuals are processing messages coming into a common inbox. Changes in mailbox state can be presented to all concurrently active clients via IMAP.

IMAP is suitable for accessing non-email data; e.g., NetNews, documents. This is handy for uniformly accessing different classes of information.

IMAP can also support the offline paradigm, for minimum connect time and server resources. The offline paradigm is useful in situations where the only access to a mail server is via expensive dialup connections and multi-platform access to one's mailboxes is not needed. It is also useful in environments where client machines are resource-rich and servers are resource-poor. Not all IMAP clients offer good offline processing support, but the protocol is certainly capable of it.

IMAP has a companion protocol defined for user configuration management called IMSP, the Internet Message Support Protocol. IMSP permits location-independent (multi-platform) access to personal configuration data such as address books.

IMAP has constructs to permit online performance optimization, especially over low-speed links. These include the ability to fetch the structure of a message without downloading it, to selectively fetch individual message parts, and the ability to use the server for searching in order to minimize data transfer between client and server.

Especially when connecting to a mail server via low-bandwidth lines, it is useful to be able to defer transferring messages or parts of messages that are not of immediate interest until a more propitious time. With multimedia or multipart MIME messages, transferring selected parts of a message can be a huge advantage, as when one is in a hotel room and has just received a short text message with a 10MB video clip attached. Efficient processing of MIME messages is a significant advantage of IMAP over POP. (MIME stands for Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions. It is the Internet standard method for sending arbitrary files as attachments to SMTP and RFC-822 compatible Internet mail messages.)

In summary, IMAP offers advantages over POP in three areas: richer functionality in manipulating one's inbox, the ability to manage mail folders besides one's inbox, and primitives to allow optimization of online performance, especially when dealing with large MIME messages.

Because there are freely available IMAP development libraries, its additional complexity over POP should not be a significant barrier to use. Therefore, a reasonable conclusion is that the only advantage of POP over IMAP is that there is currently more POP software available. However, this is changing rapidly, and IMAP's functional advantages over POP are nothing less than overwhelming.

POP3 is defined in RFC-1725 and IMAP4 is defined in RFC-1730.

A current list of IMAP products may be found at http://www.imap.org/products/, and a listing of documents relevant to IMAP at http://www.imap.org/papers/biblio.html.

Also available in the /mail directory of ftp.cac.washington.edu is a POP server that, in addition to offering the normal POP service, can relay commands to an IMAP server, thus permitting existing POP clients to access an IMAP server.

Also of potential interest are:

• http://www.imap.org/papers/biblio.html (a compilation of IMAP documents); and
• Message Access Paradigms and Protocols, which is an elaboration of this note, providing more background information and detail on POP and IMAP in the context of online message access.