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        RFC 1730:

        Title:      INTERNET MESSAGE ACCESS PROTOCOL - VERSION 4
        Author:     M. Crispin
        Mailbox:    MRC@CAC.Washington.EDU
        Pages:      77
        Characters: 156,660
        Updates/Obsoletes:  none

        URL:        ftp://ds.internic.net/rfc/rfc1730.txt


The Internet Message Access Protocol, Version 4 (IMAP4) allows a
client to access and manipulate electronic mail messages on a server.
IMAP4 permits manipulation of remote message folders, called
"mailboxes", in a way that is functionally equivalent to local
mailboxes.  IMAP4 also provides the capability for an offline client
to resynchronize with the server.

IMAP4 includes operations for creating, deleting, and renaming
mailboxes; checking for new messages; permanently removing messages;
setting and clearing flags; RFC 822 and MIME parsing; searching; and
selective fetching of message attributes, texts, and portions thereof.
Messages in IMAP4 are accessed by the use of numbers.  These numbers
are either message sequence numbers (relative position from 1 to the
number of messages in the mailbox) or unique identifiers (immutable,
strictly ascending values assigned to each message, but which are not
necessarily contiguous).  IMAP4 supports a single server.  A mechanism
for supporting multiple IMAP4 servers is in progress.  IMAP4 does not
specify a means of posting mail; this function is handled by a mail
transfer protocol such as SMTP.  IMAP4 is designed to be upwards
compatible from the IMAP2 protocol.  Compatibility issues are
discussed in RFC 1732.  This RFC is a product of the Internet Message
Access Protocol Working Group of the IETF.

This is now a Proposed Standard Protocol.

This document specifies an Internet standards track protocol for the
Internet community, and requests discussion and suggestions for
improvements.  Please refer to the current edition of the "Internet
Official Protocol Standards" (STD 1) for the standardization state
and status of this protocol.  Distribution of this memo is unlimited.

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Joyce K. Reynolds
USC/Information Sciences Institute