Page updated 10 December 2012
nPOPuk is based on Tomoaki Nakashima's diminutive nPOP, but now only bears a superficial resemblance to it, having grown into a comprehensive email client with many sophisticated facilities.
To achieve some of these improvements the structure of the data files had to be changed and they are not backwards-compatible with the original program. This accounts for the decision to change the name. nPOPuk was chosen as it was programmed and compiled by a group co-ordinated from the UK.
Even with its increased functionality, nPOPuk remains smaller than all rivals and still is available to run on a wide range of Windows-based operating systems from early versions of of WinCE through to Win64.
A full history of the improvements leading up to nPOPuk (v3.01) can be found in the User Guide Appendix: Changes.
nPOPuk is a little different from many email programs. For a start it is a true client/server application. Each nPOPuk account will communicate directly with a POP3 and SMTP server and record only what is present on those servers. The implications of this are explained below.
Being a client/server application means mail is read directly from the server and, initially, held only in memory rather than saved to disk before being displayed.
This means that if mail is deleted from the server by another program the next time nPOPuk connects to the server that mail will also disappear from the "Account" in nPOPuk, and will be permanently lost. This is true even if you have the default option set to save mail found on the server, as an nPOPuk account is only a record of mail found on the server at the time of the last connection with the server. But read on...
Most mail programs hide all server communication from the user. They save all mail within the program on the host computer deleting it from the server as it is downloaded. In nPOPuk this would be called "transferring" the mail (by a move or copy) to a "Savebox" and furthermore, this can be done automatically using mail filters, so the net result is the same as a conventional program.
The ability to distinguish between mail found on the server (shown in an nPOPuk "Account") and that held locally (in an nPOPuk "Savebox") makes it ideal for the more Specialist Tasks that don't require off-line copies of mail and this is what give nPOPuk its edge over many other email programs.
nPOPuk is a simple program to install and set up. Just download the ZIP file and open it, copy the contents to a suitable location and double-click the program icon. When you do this a Welcome dialogue will appear over the main program window. Full details of how to configure the program appear on the Installation page You can also refer to the separate Quick Start instructions, not included in this full User Guide.
Site designed by Greg Chapman and maintained by Greg and the nPOPuk team