IMAP e‑mail accounts offer a number of advantages over traditional Post Office Protocol (POP3) e‑mail accounts, including:
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The ability to manage your inbox and other e‑mail folders directly on your e‑mail server.
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The ability to quickly view message headers without downloading the bodies of the messages.
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Better support for accessing your messages from multiple locations. If you access your IMAP e‑mail while at work, for example, you can easily access the same messages from home later. With a POP3 account, e‑mail is typically deleted from the server once it's retrieved, making e‑mail management more difficult when you access your inbox from more than one computer.
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The security of knowing your e‑mail is stored on a remote server if something happens to your computer.
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Advanced features, such as the ability for multiple users to access the same mailbox simultaneously.
Yes. You can choose whether all messages, only new messages, only message headers, or no messages at all are downloaded and available for offline viewing.
To specify which messages are downloaded when checking e‑mail
1.
Open Windows Mail by clicking the Start button , clicking All Programs, and then clicking Windows Mail.
2.
Make sure that you're connected to the Internet, and then click an IMAP account in the Folders list.
3.
In the main window, select one or more folders.
4.
Click Settings, and then do one of the following:
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To download all messages, click All Messages.
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To download only new messages, click New Messages Only.
A deleted IMAP message isn't actually removed from the message list when you click Delete. Instead, it appears with a strikethrough in the message list to indicate it's marked for deletion. To permanently remove messages that have been marked for deletion from your computer, click the Edit menu, and then click Purge Deleted Messages. After deleted messages have been purged, they can no longer be recovered. To undelete a message marked for deletion, click the message, click the Edit menu, and then click Undelete. For more information, see Delete messages in Windows Mail.
Most e‑mail servers handle this automatically, but some servers might require that you point them to the location where your mailbox is stored (sometimes referred to as "setting the path").
To set the IMAP mailbox path
1.
Open Windows Mail by clicking the Start button , clicking All Programs, and then clicking Windows Mail.
2.
Click the Tools menu, and then click Accounts.
3.
Select your IMAP server from the list of accounts.
4.
Click Properties, and then click the IMAP tab.
5.
In the Root folder path box, type the path to your mailbox. Do not end this path with a slash (/) or it won't work. (For example, a root folder path in the form of ~username/Mail is valid, but ~username/Mail/ is not.)
NoteIf your IMAP server is a Cyrus server, your e‑mail folder must be contained in the Inbox folder. If your IMAP server is UNIX-based, your e‑mail folder is usually stored within the home folder for your user account (such as ~username/Mail).
User account
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User account
A collection of information that tells Windows which user rights and access permissions a person has on a computer. The user account records the user name, password, and a unique number that identifies that account.
Server
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Server
A computer that provides shared resources, such as files or printers, to network users.
Location
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Location
Any disk drive, folder, or other place in which you can store files and folders. Programs will commonly ask you to choose a location to save a file.
Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP)
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Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP)
A method computers use to send and receive e‑mail messages. It allows you to access e‑mail without downloading it to your computer.
Post Office Protocol (POP3)
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Post Office Protocol (POP3)
A standard method that computers use to send and receive e‑mail messages. POP3 messages are typically held on an e‑mail server until you download them to your computer, and then they are deleted from the server. With other e‑mail protocols, such as IMAP, e‑mail messages are held on the server until you delete them.
Help and How-to
