June 4, 2020
Sync Your Email Across Multiple Devices
Not only are you sending and receiving more email today than ever before, you are also likely accessing your email on more devices t
oday than ever before.
According to Statista, a provider of marketing and consumer data, people sent and received almost 294 billion emails each day. That’s a staggering number of daily emails, and this figure is expected to grow to over 347 billion daily emails in 2022.
The increased volume makes managing these email messages and syncing information across your devices even more important. When you open a message on your phone, it should also show as “Read” on your computer later. When you reply to an email on your computer, you should see the reply on your tablet and phone the next day.
To accomplish this, consider which email protocol to use when setting up an email address in a third-party application or email client like (Microsoft) Outlook, Thunderbird or (Mac) Mail. There are two email protocols from which to choose – Post Office Protocol (POP3) or Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP).
POP3 Downloads Messages to Your Device
POP3 is the oldest way of receiving mail in an email client. It downloads your Inbox to your computer and generally deletes the messages from the server. Once downloaded, the messages only exist on your local computer. If the computer crashes, the messages are lost.
POP3 works better if you are only using one device but have a large quantity of emails with large attachments. It was developed when dialup internet connections were common and people needed to access emails offline.
IMAP Accesses Messages From Server, Syncs Across Devices
With IMAP, messages remain on the email server and are not stored on the local devices, such as the computer or smartphone. IMAP is the current standard for syncing your emails in organized folders across multiple devices, so that you see the same folders and messages wherever and however you access your email. This includes via webmail, on your computer or from your tablet or phone.
With today’s fast, reliable and constant internet connections, most people should use IMAP. It’s the more modern protocol, it allows you to be flexible, and your email is automatically backed up on the server. If server space becomes an issue, you can still store important emails or save large attachments locally.
If you would like to change from POP3 to an IMAP set up, be sure to download and back up all of your email. Then reset the account to IMAP across all your devices, and you will be able to access all email consistently.
For information on how to set up your email using IMAP or POP3, visit goldenwest.com/emailsetup. If you need help after reviewing this information, please call our 24/7 Help Desk at 1-866-833-6683 or email them at helpdesk@goldenwest.net.