[pmontra]

I read mail first on my phone with K9 (the old UI) a few times per day and accept invitations there to put them on my phone, which is always with me. Then I download mail with Thunderbird a few times per week. I use my domain providers POP3 servers. Yes, they bundle a mailbox with each domain. It's also IMAP and webmail but POP3 is better for my use case.

[PopAlongKid]

> POP3 is better for my use case.

Same here. I want to "receive" each message exactly once, not have it synced automatically all over the place. I only handle my email from either my desktop computer or my laptop, with a simple script to copy it all back and forth whenever I switch the device I am using.

I was on call for my jobs for decades and never had any problems with this method, however it was before smartphones became common. I do not handle email on my smartphone, ever.

[pmontra]

This made me remember that for a while I used unison to sync the Thunderbird mail directory of my laptop with my EEEPC netbook (remember those things?) because a cheap 1 kg small machine was perfect to carry around on one week vacations, just in case... Then smartphones happened and killed that use case.

[folkrav]

> It's also IMAP and webmail but POP3 is better for my use case.

I'm curious as to why, if you don't mind! Are you specifically looking for "download only once then get rid of it"?

[pmontra]

Yes, see my reply to the other message.

My mail stays on my computer, backed up locally and encrypted to a remote location.

I lose the ability to access old messages from remote but it never was a problem in almost 17 years of self employment. Before that, I already had about 13 years of downloaded emails, from the times when web mail was not a thing. No need to upload my old messages to Gmail, if this is even possible. I just kept using a local mail client. For my personal mail I remember some emacs clients, Netscape Mail (bundled with the browser,) Outlook Explorer then Thunderbird. I might forget something.

[JohnFen]

Yes, before I ran my own mailserver, I strongly preferred POP3 for this reason -- it let me get my email off of a server that I had no control over and onto a machine that I do have control over.

But after I started running my own server, I prefer IMAP so that all of my email is in one place regardless of what machine I'm using. And it still lives on a machine that I have control over.

[nerdponx]

What's better about POP3 for you?

[pmontra]

I download from Thunderbird and the messages are gone from the server of the provider.

Of course I keep them there when I download in K9.

[nerdponx]

That's a disadvantage to me, because I pay my email provider in part for the reliability of not losing my emails, and also because I tend to access my email from several different devices and I want to make sure everything is synchronized. What's the advantage of downloading them all locally?

[pmontra]

The reason in the reply of yetanother12345 plus that I don't need to access my mail from multiple devices.

When I'm working I always have access to my laptop with the complete mail archive.

When I'm not working I don't need the mail archive. Access to the latest mail in the POP3 server is enough. Proof is all these years since 1994. Furthermore I didn't have any access to my mail when away from my computer up to my first Android phone in 2011. Nothing bad happened to me and to the vast majority of people, which were handling mail in the same way pre smartphones. I mean: no access when on the move.

BTW, when I send mail from the phone I BCC myself so I'll download the message for permanent storage later on.

[yetanother12345]

Not the guy you're asking, but I prefer POP3 over IMMAP for the exact same reasons as you pay a third party: "reliability of not losing my emails, and also because I tend to access my email from several different devices and I want to make sure everything is synchronized"

The difference is that with the third-party approach, the third party is really a risk factor of unknown magnitude (even if trusted and paid). With the "local" approach you are in full control.