POP3 is a common protocol that use by desktop email client to retrieve emails from your mail server. Most web-based email service don’t provide access to POP3. But it is changing. Major email provider such as GMail and Hotmail are providing POP3 to their user, except for Yahoo! Mail. POP3 is a premium service that require subscription for Yahoo Mail user. But, for some reason Asia user can use it for free! This option is not enable by default and you need to change some settings to enable POP3 in your Yahoo! Mail. Follow the guide below to enable POP3 access for your account:

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There are two methods that you can use to setup your Hotmail account in Outlook 2007. The method that I’m showing in this post is by using the Outlook Connector. The Outlook Connector is a plugin for Outlook 2003 and 2007. The plugin will enable you to retrieve your mail from your Hotmail account using Outlook. Please note that this method will only work with Microsoft Office Outlook, and not Outlook Express!

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Someone of us might be waited for this for a long time (but not me :p), Google finally added the IMAP functionality in Gmail! So, what exactly is IMAP and why is everyone is so excited about it? IMAP stands for Internet Message Access Protocol. It is one of the two protocols that most mail client support. Another more common and widely used protocol is POP (Post Office Protocol). But why people prefer IMAP over POP? The reason is because POP will download a copy of your email when you retrieve your mail using an email client. The email will still available in the server even though you deleted it from your client (ie: Outlook Express, Outlook) However, this is dependent on your mail server provider. For example, Gmail allow you to change the setting of POP. You can choose to either archive, delete or keep a copy (in the mail server) after you download your email to your client. But with IMAP, the client will synchronize with the mail server. So, if you mark you email as read, it will also be reflected in the mail server. You can also check the explanation/advantage of IMAP in the Gmail help page over here.

I’ll post a step-by-step guide on how to setup the Gmail IMAP account in Windows Live Mail later.