Harold I / Dan K said: >A *lot* of POP-using programs have the "Leave Mail On Server" option. >And a lot of people have used "Leave Mail On Server" as a poor man's >1-folder IMAP, leading POP providers to implement mail retaining policies >of the "RETR it once and it's gone, whether you DELEted it or not". > >This is shown up in RFC 1939 (current definition of POP3) section 8: >> .....In these situations and others, users and >> vendors of POP3 clients have discovered that the combination of using >> the UIDL command and not issuing the DELE command can provide a weak >> version of the "maildrop as semi-permanent repository" functionality >> normally associated with IMAP. >...........and in response, server operators are recommended to: >> * Enforce a site policy regarding mail retention on the server. >> Sites are free to establish local policy regarding the storage and >> retention of messages on the server, both read and unread. For >> example, a site might delete unread messages from the server after >> 60 days and delete read messages after 7 days. Such message >> deletions are outside the scope of the POP3 protocol and are not >> considered a protocol violation. Dan says: Well, yes I guess it "their" server (somebody's). There are a few things obviously desireble in POPX thet aren't in there. (deliver without Mime attachments as a preview, for instance). Seems like IMAP is kind of too much, and Pop3 is too little for a lot of users. I wouldn't like it if the server did this. I'd rather have a fixed limit in size, and a warning via email when its almost full, and have it reject messages beyond that size. But that's me. I guess leaving it to the site is just a part of reality. A tiny extention to allow "push" email just broadcasting the subject lines; (possible encrypted) and headers generally would be cool. Like blackberry's protocol but not proprietary. In any case I think pretty soon a total rethink of email is in order... re authentication/encryption/spam. but it's gotta be compatible and this will be tricky, to say the least. regs Dan