cPanel offers two main forms of email connections to set your email client up with, IMAP & POP.
Technically you can use both at the same time as they connect to the same mailbox, but we strongly recommend you pick either one or the other.
Unless you have special circumstances, in most cases you want to select IMAP as it synchronizes between devices and stores all the emails on the server, which is vital if you use you mailbox in more than one place, such as on a mobile phone.
IMAP
IMAP Advantages
- Folders, email’s and read history will be synchronized between devices
- Messages will be backed up on the server in case you lose the device or buy a new one
- Minimal Disk Usage on Device (Important for mobile devices)
- Ability to use Webmail
- Compatiable with all major email-clients
IMAP Disadvantages
- Consumes Diskspace on the server and may require you to upgrade plans after several years
- Only the most recent emails (couple of weeks) may be saved on the local device in full, requiring online access to search older messages
- If the email server crash’s or gets hacked, you may lose all emails
- If you accidentially delete a message off 1 device, it will be deleted off all
- Hard to migrate between email providers
POP3
POP Advantages
- Your mailbox size is only limited by how large your devices harddisk is
- All Emails can be viewed offline
- Minimal reliance on third-party provider
- Easy to switch between email providers
POP Disadvantages
- If your local device fails (malware, corruption, hardware failure etc) your provider may not have a replacement copy
- Upgrading between devices may require you to move a very large data-file
- Very hard to to switch between Mail-Client: ie Thunderbird to Outlook
- Not practical when mailbox is configured on multiple devices or if you require WebMail
- Slowly getting phased out