If you use a mailbox with your own personal domain and not a 3rd-party one, you’ll be able to make use of an email app such as Thunderbird, Outlook or Apple Mail to access and administer your email accounts. The benefit of using such apps is that they also offer other features, such as address books and calendars. There are two different email retrieval protocols that you can choose from when you configure the app of your liking to access your mailbox – POP3 and IMAP. With the first protocol, all messages that are received will be downloaded to your device – desktop or mobile, unless you choose to keep a copy on the email server. With the second one, the messages will be displayed locally at your end, but they will stay on the server all the time, so you can set up the account on multiple devices and see the email messages from any location. You’ll also be able to see old emails in case there is a problem with your Internet connectivity, which is a big advantage over a web-based service.