What are POP, IMAP and SMTP?

If you are looking to access your mail.com account through a third-party email program, you may have seen these abbreviations for different email protocols. Please click the term in question for more information.

Info:

Please note that the use of POP, IMAP and SMTP are mail.com Premium features only.

If you would like to use these protocols to receive your emails, please upgrade your account to a Premium account. For more information please visit the Premium upgrade page.

SMTP
SMTP stands for "Simple Mail Transfer Protocol" and is a protocol for sending emails.
IMAP
IMAP stands for "Internet Access Message Protocol" and is a protocol for receiving emails. IMAP stores the message on a server and synchronizes the message across multiple devices, so it can be accessed whenever you have an internet connection.
POP3
POP3 stands for "Post Office Protocol Version 3" and is another protocol for receiving emails. This protocol enables offline mode. Emails are transmitted from a server to the email program you use and then deleted from the server (unless you manually change the settings).

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