Error! Faulty! Analyse!

[mikailborg]

Dammit, IMAP is deleting messages off the server... possibly just the ones I move on the client using a rule, but that's a lot of my messages. I guess I need to go back to POP and just deal with marking the same message as read repeatedly.

Ah, well. Learning experience.

Comments

[jdunson.livejournal.com]

Your statement assumes that the network is ubiquitous, high-bandwidth, high-reliability, and high-security. I don't think that's enough of a general case to be making flat statements, even here in the US. There are also other considerations such as server storage and policy; you have to trust the entire chain to treat your stuff with the same care you do in perpetuity.

[vond.livejournal.com]

I can't agree with this - you seem to be arguing under the impression that IMAP forces you to keep your mail ONLY on the server and somehow prevents you from keeping a local copy. IMAP just as available as with POP, just tell your mail client to sync everything (or "make available offline" or whatever the client calls it) and you're in the same boat as POP, but with way more usability since you can do that on multiple machines with no issues. In the unlikely event your IMAP server dies with no possible recovery, just sync back from the machine with the most recent copy, and again you're in the same situation as with POP.

In short, IMAP is literally EVERYTHING POP is, and much more.

The only place where issues arise is if your central server doesn't provide enough storage, in which case you can do like an exchange user and archive your old mail.