https://help.aol.com/articles/what-is-the-difference-between-pop3-and-imap
I'm a little confused, since what is written on the above url... is what I ALWAYS considered to be the exact other way around?
(I thought IMAP would download the emails to your pc and delete them from the server, and POP3 to keep them on the server)
- Now can someone please clear this up for me, what's the real story??
The major difference is where the email actually resides.
POP mail downloads a copy of the email to the device (computer, phone, tablet, watch, etc). Whether or not a copy remains on the server is a matter of configuration settings on the client. Most POP email clients have, as a part of their configuration, the option to delete the server copy of the email, either as soon as it's downloaded to the client, or after a set period of time (one day, one week, one month). The article makes an incorrect statement regarding the "POP3 downloads email from a server to a single computer, then deletes it from the server". That is one configuration option, but not necessarily how it (has to) work(s).
POP mail does involve more work if you download it to multiple clients/devices, as each client/device gets its own copy, and the act of filtering, deleting etc, must be done on each device.
IMAP mail remains on the server as long as the email lives. The various client devices are simply looking at the server copy of the email - so any action taken by any client/device affects the server copy of the email, and therefore, ALL client/devices' access to that mail, including filtering, moving to a folder, deleting, etc.
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