What is Email Protocols? Types Of Email Protocols

What is Email Protocols? Types Of Email Protocols

Email protocols is protocols (set of rules) which help the client to transfer/transmit information or exchanging information to or from email servers.
Here Email clients like Microsoft Outlook, Mozilla Thunderbird, etc and Email provider server's Like Gmail, Yahoo, Outlook etc.

Now in this article we're going to talk about a couple of different email protocols.
These protocols are used for retrieving email from an email server and sending emails from clients to an email server.

Now for an example if you're using an email client such as Microsoft Outlook then you would configure outlook with either POP3 or IMAP to retrieve your email on a computer and you can also use these protocols on your tablet or smartphone to retrieve your email. 
so you can use either one, the choice is yours. but the question is which protocol do you want to use? which is one better than the other? 
For sending there is only SMTP so that don't have confusion.
In this article we also do best secure email configuration and complete details of POP3, IMAP and SMTP.

POP3:

POP3 stands for post office protocol 3.
These protocol used for receiving emails from mail servers.
These are the ports that POP3 uses to establish a connection with an email server:
Port 110 – non-encrypted port
Port 995 – SSL/TLS port, also known as POP3s.
POP3 is the simplest of the two protocols because the only thing that pop3 does is download the email to your device from a mail server.
It only downloads what's in your inbox folder which is where your email is and that's pretty much it doesn't download any other folders or their contents so it doesn't download your sent items, your drafts, your deleted emails and so on.
So we can say that it doesn't do any kind of synchronization.
It is mostly used for single devices because there is no synchronization.
POP3 doesn't do any email or folder syncing so that's why the emails and the folder structure can be different in different devices.
By default when you're using pop3 the email will be deleted on the mail server once it's downloaded to a device, so no copy of the email is kept on the server.
However most email clients will have a setting that you can check to leave a copy on the server, so that all of your devices can retrieve the emails.
POP3 is good if you're only going to retrieve your email from one device. 
The advantage of using pop3 is that since the email is downloaded to your device you can view your downloaded email even if you don't have an internet connection, so the only time that you need an internet connection when you're receiving new email or sending email.
Another advantage of pop3 is that it saves storage space on the mail server because the emails are deleted when they are downloaded to a device.
A disadvantage of pop3 is that since the emails are removed from the server and downloaded to your device you would need a plan to backup your emails in case your device crashes or is lost.
Another disadvantage is that your device has a better chance of being infected with viruses since the emails are fully downloaded. 

IMAP:

IMAP stands for Internet message access protocol.
These protocol also used for receiving emails from mail server but IMAP is two-way incoming mail protocol that only downloads email headers instead of its entire content.
Here are the default ports that IMAP connection use:
Port 143 – non-encrypted port
Port 993 – SSL/TLS port, also known as IMAPs.  
IMAP allows you to view your email that's on the server from multiple devices. 
The email is kept on the server and it caches local copies of the email on to all of your devices and it synchronizes all of your folders and everything that's in them, so it syncs your inbox, sent items, deleted items, drafts and any custom folders that you may have created so when you view your email on your computer, tablet or smartphone your email would be exactly the same because everything is synchronized.
In IMAP the email and folder structure are identical same because IMAP syncs everything with all of your devices.
IMAP is good when you're going to retrieve your email from multiple devices.
An advantage of using IMAP is that all the email is stored on the mail server so whether you're accessing your email using an email client or webmail and you'll be able to see all your email including your sent items, drafts, deleted items and any custom folders and all the email and all folders are all synchronized so every device that you have will see the exact same thing.
A disadvantage of IMAP is that you will not be able to view your emails without an internet connection and this is because IMAP only caches local copies of the email on your device and doesn't download them. 
However some email clients will give you have an option that you can check to have IMAP download the emails to your device instead of just cashing them.

SMTP: 

SMTP stands for a Simple Mail Transfer Protocol.
These protocol used for sending emails from client to mail servers.
SMTP is basically a set of commands that authenticates and directs the transfer of email.
Below are the ports used by this protocol:
Port 25 – non-encrypted port
Port 465 – SSL/TLS port, also known as SMTPs.
2525 and 587 ports also used for SMTP. 
As an example when you write an email using an email client such as Microsoft Outlook and then when you hit send the email travels from your computer to your email server using the SMTP protocol now this server is also known as the SMTP server and this is what's configured in
your email client.
For example if you're using Gmail the SMTP server address would be smtp.gmail.com and then your SMTP server will send the message to the recipients email server also using SMTP then the email will stay on the recipient's email server until the recipient logs into their email account and downloads the email using pop or IMAP or they can just view the email on the server by using webmail.
SMTP uses the TCP (Transmission Control Protocol), TCP is a connection-oriented protocol and it guarantees the delivery of the email.
If for some reason that the email that you sent does not reach its destination because that maybe you misspelled the email address or the email address no longer exists, so if this happens you'll get mail delivery error in your mailbox and informing you that the email you sent is failed.  
Just like POP and IMAP, SMTP is also configured in your email client such as Microsoft Outlook, Mozilla Thunderbird or your mobile device so for example if you're using Gmail you would use smtp.gmail.com in the outgoing server settings in your email client and this is also known as the SMTP server setting.