Hosting Terms
What is IMAP?
IMAP in plain English — the meaning, the comparison, and why it matters to anybody running a website.
Straight answer first
IMAP is the email protocol that leaves your mail on the server and keeps every one of your devices showing the same mailbox.
Below: the fuller explanation, a picture that makes it stick, why it matters in practice, and where you will actually run into it.
Written by the Hosting Seller staff · Checked 1 August 2026
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Read a message on your phone and it shows as read on your laptop. Folders, flags and deletions all match, because every client is looking at one copy held on the server rather than keeping its own. For anyone using more than one device, that is the correct starting point.
The trade is storage. Your mail lives on the server and grows there year after year, which makes watching the quota the one recurring chore that comes with the arrangement.
The everyday comparison
One filing cabinet that every member of staff walks over to consult. The alternative is everyone keeping their own photocopies and slowly disagreeing about what the file contains.
Comparisons simplify, naturally — but this one holds together well enough to reason with, and reasoning is the whole point of a glossary.
What is actually at stake
Choosing IMAP rather than POP when the account is first set up is what makes email make sense across phone, desktop and webmail. Nearly every 'my devices show different things' complaint turns out to be POP being asked to behave like IMAP.
You do not need to work at this layer every day. You need to recognise it when it explains something, which is exactly the moment this page earns its keep.
What it looks like day to day
An owner clears the inbox on the morning train, and the laptop at the office opens on exactly that state — same flags, same folders, nothing to sort out twice.
Multiply that example by every website on the internet and you have the concept's entire job description in one go.
How this turns up in your own account
On our hosting this largely looks after itself — the platform applies sensible defaults, and the panel hands you the controls when you want them. The concepts worth reading next: POP3, SMTP, Webmail and Mailbox Quota.
NVMe disks and LiteSpeed caching sit on the shelf at every price point, not behind a premium tier.
A glossary written by the people on the counter
Every confusing term in hosting turns into a support ticket sooner or later, so we defined the hundred most common ones properly, once, in the plain English we would use across the counter.
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- 100+ terms, all in plain English
- Everyday comparisons and real examples
- Related concepts linked together
- Written by the people on the desk
Why Hosting Seller
On every plan, as standard
Plain English first
Every term defined for people who run sites, not for other sysadmins — jargon translated rather than restated.
Grounded in real kit
Examples point at hosting you would actually use, not at an abstract diagram.
Linked, never siloed
Related terms cross-reference each other, so one lookup grows into a working understanding.
One term, fully landed
IMAP defined, pictured by comparison and placed in your own control panel — recognise-level in a single read.
Honest about what to skip
Most terms are recognise-level rather than operate-level, and the glossary says which is which.
The next reads, mapped
Read on into POP3 and SMTP — terms rarely stand alone, so the neighbours are linked.
First Steps
From choosing to live
- 1
Find it in your own account
Open the control panel and find where this concept lives — seeing it attached to your own site is what turns a definition into understanding.
- 2
Check what the defaults are
Confirm how your account has this set. It is usually right by default here, and now you will know rather than guess.
- 3
Follow the terms next door
Concepts travel in packs — POP3, SMTP and Webmail finish this one's picture, and each is a two-minute read away.
In the Box
Packed with every plan
- A 30-day money-back guarantee on every hosting plan
- Spam and virus filtering fitted to every mailbox
- WordPress Toolkit, with updates applied for you
- DDoS filtering handled out at the network edge
- WebP image optimisation built in and costing nothing
- A domain free for year one when you order annually
- One-click installs for WordPress and 400+ other applications
- A free SSL certificate on every plan, reissued before it lapses
- Webmail in the browser plus IMAP, POP and SMTP for your own client
- The renewal price printed on the tag matches the order price
Across the Counter
The questions we get asked most
Should a new account be IMAP or POP?
IMAP in almost every case. Keeping the authoritative copy on the server and syncing devices to it matches how people genuinely read mail now. POP's remaining niche — one device, server deliberately kept empty — barely comes up any more.
Does using IMAP mean my mail is kept safe forever?
It means centralised, which is not the same as backed up. What sits on the server is live working data. Clearing space, keeping archives and the host's own backup layer are what preserve mail. IMAP is about getting to it, not about keeping it.
Is there a refund if it does not suit?
Yes — thirty days. Put the hosting through real work, and if it is not right, ask for the money back and you get it; there is no retention script to survive first. Domain registrations are the one carve-out, because registries take that fee the moment the name is placed.
How do I pay, and does it bill again on its own?
Orders go through a secure checkout by credit or debit card, and the renewal is taken at the same price you first paid. Every invoice sits in the client area for you to read, and switching auto-renewal off is a toggle in your account rather than a phone call.
How quickly can I be up and running?
Minutes, not days. The account opens the moment the order clears, the domain — free for year one on annual plans — attaches straight away, and the one-click installer puts WordPress or any of 400+ applications on the page before you leave your chair. Already have a site elsewhere? Hand it over and we move it free, usually inside a day.
Does the price climb when the term is up?
No. What you pay to order is what you pay to renew, year after year. We do not run teaser rates, so there is no year-two ambush waiting in the calendar, and your bookkeeping can treat the hosting line as a fixed number.
Can I set the PHP version myself?
Yes — PHP versions are chosen per site from the control panel, so an old application and a current one can sit side by side on the same account. Extensions and per-site settings live in the same screen, and none of it needs a support ticket.
Read next
Mailbox Quota
A mailbox quota is the storage limit on a single email account — and once that box is full, new mail bounce…
SMTP
SMTP is the protocol that sends email — from your mail app to your mail server, and from there between serv…
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WHMCS License
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