Email is today still an irreplaceable communication channel for businesses and individuals alike. So much that if you fail to receive an important email on time, you may risk missing critical business opportunities.

Here is where the ‘Push Email’ functionality for the IMAP protocol kicks in.

What is IMAP IDLE?

IMAP IDLE is a simple, yet very effective protocol for keeping you notified for incoming email messages the moment they are sent to you.

Normally, if IMAP IDLE is not enabled on the server, an email client will have to constantly connect to the server to check for new messages. This connection will be refreshed by the email client at regular intervals, leading to consumption of considerable amounts of Internet traffic.

While this would not be an issue for a desktop user, a mobile user will see the difference in his monthly mobile data usage bill.

With IMAP IDLE enabled for the IMAP protocol, the mail client on your device will keep a persistent connection with the server and considerably less traffic (several bytes a day) will be consumed in the process.

How does ‘Push Email’ for IMAP work?

With an active connection maintained between the sending mail server and the mail client on your device, you will be notified of new inbound messages immediately.

The ‘Push Email’ functionality is supported by almost all Operating Systems and email clients and it is enabled by default on all our web hosting servers, so you do not need to do anything on your end to set email pushing in action; if you are not interested in this option though, you can turn it off from your email client.

Kind Regards,
Support team