29/07/1988
The Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP) is an Application Layer Internet protocol that allows an email client to access email on a remote mail server.
IMAP that was previously known as Internet Mail Access Protocol, Interactive Mail Access Protocol, and Interim Mail Access Protocol, was designed by Mark Crispin. Although it was different in many ways from POP, IMAP was thought of as a functional superset of POP.
The IMAP specification has been criticised for being insufficiently strict and allowing behaviours that effectively negate its usefulness.