Updated April 3, 2023
Introduction to POP Protocol
The procedure of the post office is POP. SMTP is used to exchange messages, as we learn. Using SMPT, you must send the message to the server from the client and the destination node. The message will be sent from the recipient server to the actual server by the User Access Agent. In the Message Access Agent, there are two types of protocols: POP3 and IMAP. In this topic, we are going to learn about the POP Protocol.
What is POP3?
The POP3 is a simple protocol with very limited features. In the case of POP3, the client POP3 is mounted on the network of the recipient while the server POP3 is mounted on the mail server of the recipient. In 1984, the Internet Technology Working Group first implemented a variant of the Post Office Protocol as RFC 918. Developers have developed a simple and efficient e-mail protocol known as the POP3 protocol to retrieve e-mails from the server. It makes access to the mails offline instead of the mailbox offline.
In 1985 RFC 937 adopted the postal protocol version 2, but in 1988 it was replaced by RFC 1081 with the postal protocol version 3. Instead, for the next ten years, the POP3 was revised before its release. This was released in 1996 until fully refined. While several changes have been made to the POP3 protocol, the developers retained a basic concept that a three-stage procedure was followed during the email retrieval between the client and the server. This protocol was made very straightforward, and this simplicity makes this today very popular.
How is Mail Transmitted?
Give the email to the recipient, say. The first mail is sent to the mail server of the sender. The mail is then sent to the receiver’s mail server via the internet from the sender’s mail server. Once the mail is received from the postal server of the receiver, the postal is then forwarded to the customer. The whole process is carried out using Email protocols. The post is sent from the sender to the sender’s mail server and then to the mail server of the recipient using the SMTP protocol.
The POP or IMAP protocol transmits the data to the individual user on the recipient’s mail server. SMTP is a push protocol so that the request is sent from the client to the server. As you can see in the figure above, SMTP transfers the client’s message to the mail server of the destination. A pull protocol is required for the third stage of email communication, and POP is a pull protocol. Once the mail is sent from the receipt server to the recipient, the client takes the mail from the server.
Working of POP 3
The POP3 server requests the user name to the POP3 client to create the connection between the POP3 server and the POP3 client. If the POP3 server username is identified, it will submit the ok message. You then question the POP3 client’s password; then, the POP3 client sends a POP3 server password. If the password matches, an OK message will be received from the POP3 server, which will create a connection. The client will see the mail list on the mail server POP3 after creating a link.
Within the mail list, the customer receives the server’s email numbers and sizes. Then, the user can begin retrieving the mail from this list. Once all emails are collected from the server by the client, all emails are deleted from the server. And we may assume that emails are limited to one specific machine so that the same mails on another machine can not be accessed. Setting the mail settings to leave a mail copy on the mail server will fix the situation.
Advantages of POP Protocol
- It lets users offline read the text even when retrieving emails from the server does this involve an internet connection. When the emails are downloaded from the server, any of the emails downloaded can be accessed without Internet connectivity on our Mac or on our computer hard disk. There is also no need for permanent internet access in the POP3 protocol.
- The collection of all mails locally on the local computer needs less disk space.
- It’s a simple protocol, so it’s one of today’s most popular.
- The size of the email we receive or send is not limited.
Disadvantages of POP Protocol
- By default, all emails are removed from the server if they are accessed from the server. Therefore, mails from other computers can not be accessed without a copy of the mail on the server being installed.
- Despite the high probability of a virus attack, the virus scanner doesn’t search all attachments on your local machinery. Then, the assault of the virus will destroy the machine.
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This is a guide to the POP Protocol. Here we discuss what is POP3 protocol, how it works, along with its advantages and disadvantages. You may also look at the following articles to learn more –
