POP (Post Office Protocol)

What is POP (Post Office Protocol)?

Post Office Protocol (POP) is a protocol that is used to retrieve email from a mail server. It is a simple, widely-supported protocol that is used by email clients to download email messages from an email server to a local computer.

When you use an email client, such as Microsoft Outlook or Apple Mail, to access your email, the client communicates with the mail server using the POP protocol. When you request to retrieve your email, the client sends a request to the server, which response by sending the email messages back to the client. The client then downloads the messages and stores them locally on your computer.

POP is a widely-used protocol, and it is supported by most email clients and servers. However, it has some limitations, such as the fact that it only allows you to download messages from the server to a single device. If you want to access your email from multiple devices, you may be better off using a different protocol, such as IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol), which allows you to synchronize your email across multiple devices.