GMail should have chosen IMAP instead of POP
General Thoughts, Webmail Service November 12th, 2004
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GMail with IMAP not POP makes more sense
Yesterday Google added POP support to GMail for the beta users. It is a welcome update to the much hyped up webmail service from Google. Now, why Google chose POP above IMAP for now is something beyond my comprehension.
As per Google Definitions:
POP3 is an electronic mail protocol used to retrieve messages stored on an Internet/intranet e-mail server. POP3 is a ‘pull’ protocol. Whenever a client wants to check for messages it connects to its Internet Service Provider’s e-mail server and uses POP3 to login to its mailbox and ‘pull’ down its messages.
IMAP is a method of distributing e-mail. It is different from the standard POP3 method in that with IMAP, e-mail messages are stored on the server, while in POP3, the messages are transferred to the client’s computer when they are read. Thus, using IMAP allows you to access your e-mail from more than one machine, while POP3 does not.
In simple terms, IMAP mirrors the mail structure available on the server in the mail client. POP on the other hand detaches the mail downloaded from the server. With 1 GB web space available with GMail, it would be been better for users to have syndicated mails rather than downloading mails and then removing them from online version.
The advantage would have been simple. I can maintain a searchable mail history on the net as well as my desktop. With pop, I now have to manually login to webmail to remove unwanted mails to keep a web database of important mails. IMAP enables me to delete unwanted mails from my mail client itself.
Google has not exactly denied any future plans for IMAP support. And considering the service is BETA, more options may be available with final release. And that might consist of IMAP support as well. For now, I would be using POP to keep a backup of my mails on GMail and still use it as a webmail service. The concept of mail conversations is too good to be not used!
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I completly agree with the View on The Gmails. It should Allow Imap as that will be better, Google will find that useful and users too as it a sync based technology.
Duh1: POP3 is a very simple protocol, much simpler than IMAP and therefore less trouble-some for Google to support.
Duh2: Yes, POP3 can suck the GB’s of mail off Google’s server(s). I think that’s the point :) However, most POP3 can be configured on the client end to leave a copy of messages on the server.
@Duh: well pop let me save mails on the server. but i cannot synchronise the mails. for deleting junk mails i would have to login to webmail.
Yes, most POP clients will let you keep a copy of the messages on the server. some will let you specify that emails you delete locally will be deleted from the server too. Don’t mis-interpet me. IMAP is superior to POP (see Duh#1) That’s why they went with POP. POP is easier to maintain and support from Google side. It places ‘the burdens’ of speed and storage on the client, thereby freeing up resources on the server-side (Google). When you get a service for free (like gmail), you can expect that service to be given on terms that are convenient for the provider of that service, not you, the user. That’s the big Duh. Anyone should be able to comprehend that. There’s an old saying…”You get what you pay for”.
by the way, when i think of Google, i think of innovation. so, i’m sure if their POP ventures are a success, IMAP support will follow.
1. I don’t think Google would be giving pop for free. if they do, it would be pretty awesome.
2. I am not blaming google for chosing pop. the service is in beta, so I don’t consider it free at this point of time.
3. What I said was that a service with 1GB mail IMAP makes more sense.
4. It’s an opinion not a demand.
for comment#5, i already said:
Google has not exactly denied any future plans for IMAP support.
:)
We are a lot of Gmail users waiting for an IMAP access http://www.petitiononline.com/igmail/petition.html.
Currently, it is possible to use POP over SSL on port 995 and SMTP over SSL on port 465.
Remark that when you send a message with a MUA using smtp://smtp.gmail.com a copy of the message is placed into the ‘Sent’ folder and is hence accessibe via the webmail !
With POP, you can manage your MUA so that the messages are automatically deleted after X days or when you decide to delete them with your MUA.
Also, some MUA, like Thunderbird, allows to fetch message headers and to download message bodies independently.
IMAP should use much more resources than POP on the server side
IMAP would be nice, but at least it’s something!
Can anyone send a GMail link to me?
without ur mail id? u gotta be kidding me.
I would not like to disclose my gmail id over here but I have a gmail ID and I am also from the lucky once for whom the POP3 facility has already started. But this pop does not mean simply ‘cutting’ the email and ‘pasting’ on your computer hard disk. This can be done, it is optional, but gmail also has an option to do ‘copy’ and ‘paste’. i.e. it has an option to allow pop3 downloaded as well as retain the email in the gmail inbox. So it does not matter to me whether it is pop or imap.
IMAP is defintely a better protocol. But there is a slight catch. For every IMAP connection to the server the server has to allocate memory equal to the size of your inbox (subfolders of inbox excluded). Now with millions of users and 1 Gig per user I see a problem with the amount of memory google will have to purchase.
IMAP a more capable protocol in any case; I’m not so sure about “better”. IMAP is bloated, overly complicated and hard to implement. I used to be a big fan of IMAP until I got around to actually study the protocol specification. Now I tend to think it would be better to enhance POP. (Still, IMAP is the only protocol that does what IMAP does, and it would be good if it could be implemented…)
IMAP is not only extremely bloated, it requires complex parsing of message headers, and a bloated over-functional, highly verbose protocol.