zlacker

>>todsac+(OP)
> We see that that’s a quite a long line. Mail servers don’t like that

Why do mail server care about how long a line is? Why don't they just let the client reading the mail worry about wrapping the lines?

>>tibors+Qa
SMTP is a line–based protocol, including the part that transfers the message body

The server needs to parse the message headers, so it can't be an opaque blob. If the client uses IMAP, the server needs to fully parse the message. The only alternative is POP3, where the client downloads all messages as blobs and you can only read your email from one location, which made sense in the year 2000 but not now when everyone has several devices.

>>direwo+6j
Hey, POP3 still makes sense. Having a local copy of your emails is useful.

>>fluori+8v
Isn’t the only difference between pop and imap that pop removes the mail from the server? I only use imap, and all my email is available offline.

>>Jaxan+Jt1
POP is a simple mail transfer protocol (hehe...). It supports three things: get number of mails, download mail by number, delete mail by number. This is what you need to move mails in bulk from one point to another. POP3 mail clients are local maildir clients that use POP3 to get new mail from the server. It's like SMTP if it were based on polling.

IMAP is an interactive protocol that is closer to the interaction between Gmail frontend and backend. It does many things. The client implements a local view of a central source of truth.