The Old Joel on Software Forum: Part 3 (of 5) - Mail clients to read a POP account

Mail clients to read a POP account

My long-term personal email is an account at Yahoo. I switch clients frequently, so I use that account for all personal and job related mails. I’m on a couple of reasonably high-volume lists, so the web interface isn’t acceptable for me. I need to read and write mail from client site, so I can’t use the POP access to do all my mailing from my home computer.

I’m looking for a windows app that uses POP to communicate with my Yahoo mailbox. I want a user experience like Outlook (or better), but I want all the mail to stay on the Yahoo servers. Ideally, I’d like to be able to move mails to folders. This doesn’t seem that hard, but I can’t find an app that does it. Suggestions?

Ted Graham
Wednesday, October 1, 2003

"...that uses POP... but I want all the mail to stay on the Yahoo servers"

I could be wrong, but I think those two desires are at odds with each other. Isn't IMAP the way to keep the mail on the server without using a website interface?

Patrick Lioi
Wednesday, October 1, 2003

Does Yahoo support IMAP? That's the protocol designed for exactly what you want (and supported by most email clients).

OTOH, most email clients have a 'leave mail on server' option that will download new mail to your client but leave it on the server (so you can access it via webmail also). This means you have the same message stored in two (or more) different places, but it might meet your needs.

RocketJeff
Wednesday, October 1, 2003

Maybe http://www.oddpost.com/ is something for you.

Just me (Sir to you)
Wednesday, October 1, 2003

or maybe you can try a Blackberry

19th floor
Wednesday, October 1, 2003

http://yahoopops.sourceforge.net/
This is exactly what you need!

Yaniv
Wednesday, October 1, 2003

Thanks for info. It doesn't look like Yahoo Mail supports IMAP. Leaving mails on the server is what I'm trying to avoid, I get too much traffic to delete mail twice. YahooPops is interesting, but it seems to be a solution to avoid paying the $30/year for POP access. I'm already paying and I don't mind continuing, I just need a better way to manage the mails.

Ted Graham
Wednesday, October 1, 2003

What you could do then is get your own domain with email service.

My webhost runs $7.77/month and provides email service that can be accessed through their webmail front-end or via IMAP (or POP3) protocols (you can, of course, install your own webmail software if you don't like theirs).

The other advantage to this is that you get your own domain and you look just a bit more professional.

There are plenty of hosts at the sub-$10/month level - watch their quality of service! Some are great and some barely keep their servers running.

RocketJeff
Wednesday, October 1, 2003

I read my mail from different computers too, and exactly for that reason I use IMAP. My mail is stored on a server, and I can conveniently access it from any IAMP-capable client, or from a browser via a web interface if there is no mail client, or if I'm being too lazy to configure a client. Read/unread and other relevant states are also stored on the server; works much better than POP with "leave mail on server".

Of course, Yahoo doesn't support IMAP. I use fastmail.fm, which is free for a basic account, and has a reasonable price for more advanced accounts.

Roel Schroeven
Wednesday, October 1, 2003

FuseMail will combine a bunch of POP accounts into an account that can be read with IMAP. It is free to start, I assume they will charge in the future and probably already charge for more space. I may go with that solution, I haven't decided yet.

Ted Graham
Friday, October 3, 2003