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What is the difference between POP3 and IMAP mailboxes?

A mailbox is the place where emails are stored. Every user on your account has a mailbox which can receive mail sent to user@example.com (where example.com is your domain). This means that employees in a company or family members can have separate mailboxes.

You can also set up aliases for mailboxes, so the user 'john' could have the alias of 'support' and receive mail sent to both john@example.com and support@example.com in his mailbox. You can connect to a mailbox using POP3 or IMAP.

POP3 is the most popular email protocol. When using a POP3 mailbox, the messages are normally downloaded and stored on your computer (you can then read them offline). Should you wish to access your mail from another computer or use webmail to access emails you can instruct your mail client to leave the messages on the server.

IMAP stores your mail folders (inbox, sent items, etc) on the server (the same principle as webmail). This way you can only access your mail when you are connected to the Internet. IMAP is generally used if checking your mail from various locations using a mail client.

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