IMAP, POP and SMTP explained
Configuring your email client to access your St Andrews email
You can configure your desktop email client to access your email using either POP or IMAP. The differences are described below. For most situations IMAP is the recommended method.
IMAP, POP and SMTP explained
IMAP stands for Internet Message Access Protocol, which is a method of accessing electronic mail or bulletin board messages that are kept on a remote, and possibly shared, mail server. For example, email stored on an IMAP server can be manipulated from a desktop computer at home, a workstation at the office, a mobile smartphone, or a notebook computer while travelling, without the need to transfer messages or files back and forth between these computers.
- Both your incoming mailbox (new mail) and your mail folders (messages you have read and filed) are stored on the server
- The original messages remain on the server and copies only are downloaded to your computer
- Messages held on the server are regularly backed up by IT Services
For most people, IMAP is the recommended way of accessing email. The advantages are that your mail is backed up regularly and you can access your mail from more than one computer.
POP stands for Post Office Protocol. POP is designed to allow users with intermittent connections (such as dial-up) to retrieve email when connected, and then to view and manipulate the retrieved messages without needing to stay connected.
- Email clients using POP generally connect, retrieve all new messages, store them on the user's PC, delete them from the server, and then disconnect. However most clients have an option to leave mail on the server, which may be useful if you wish access your email from different locations and different computers.
Thunderbird can be set to use POP, and is the recommended email client in the University.
You are recommended to use POP if you are using a dial-up connection because with IMAP you need to remain connected, whereas with POP you can disconnect as soon as you have downloaded your messages. In other circumstances you are strongly recommended to use IMAP.
SMTP stands for Simple Mail Transport Protocol. SMTP is used to handle outgoing mail from University users. It is a relatively simple, text-based protocol, in which one or more recipients of a message are specified (and in most cases verified to exist) along with the message text and possibly other encoded objects. The message is then transferred to a remote server using a procedure of queries and responses between the client and server.
IMAP, POP and SMTP settings
Use your mail client's settings to specify whether to use POP or IMAP. Connection details for your incoming mail server are as follows:
- IMAP
Server: imap.st-andrews.ac.uk
Port: 993
Connection security: SSL/TLS
- POP
Server: pop.st-andrews.ac.uk
Port: 995
Connection security: SSL/TLS
Connection details for your email client's outgoing mail server are as follows:
- SMTP
Server: mailhost.st-andrews.ac.uk
Port: 587
Connection security: STARTTLS
Note: In the past you had to specify the name of your particular mailserver (maila, mailb or mailc for example) but this is no longer required - simply specify imap or pop.
