Most of you might not know that there are two methods of receiving emails on our mobile or desktop devices. The two methods are known as Push and Fetch Emails. After knowing the difference between the two you will be able to optimize or speed up the receiving of emails.
Push Emails
Push emails or Push notifications are the more modern one and may not be supported by older email servers. As soon the email is received at the Email Server, it is pushed immediately to the Email client (device). So, in receiving emails there is no role of client and it is the entire responsibility of Email server to notify the client of email notifications. All the popular Email service providers like Gmail, Outlook or Yahoo use Push notifications and the email protocol used in Push notifications is IMAP.
Fetch Emails
Unlike in Push email notifications, in Fetch Emails, all the responsibility of receiving the emails lies with Client. This method puts a little load on Email servers and is used by those email services that rely on the email servers with less efficient servers (with lower hardware configuration). The server will not send the email until it is asked by the client. You can send the time interval for the client to ping the email server for new emails.
The Fetch email method put a greater load on clients like smartphones or laptops and is also one of the reasons for the draining of batteries. Battery drain and slower email notifications have led to the decline of popularity of Fetch Emails. The email protocol used in retrieving the emails using the Fetch method is POP3 and usually is not the default method.
Conclusion
To sum up, in the end, it is clear that PUSH email notification is a winner when it comes to speed, server load, and bandwidth conservation. Although IMAP is the default protocol used by email servers you should always use it over POP3 when it comes to setting it up manually. Which email receiving method are you using in your device?
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