Many free webmail services offer POP or IMAP access, which lets you quickly and securely download your email to an email client like Outlook, Mail, or Thunderbird. We compared email services that support POP and IMAP, then selected our favorites based on ease of use, compatibility, and features. Here are our picks for the six best free POP and IMAP email services.

Gmail is Google’s take on email and chat. With generous free online storage, you can collect your messages, and Gmail’s simple yet smart interface helps you find messages and view them in context effortlessly. Gmail also places contextual ads next to the emails you read.

Gmail provides robust access to its IMAP and POP mail servers, making it easy to access Gmail with an email client.

Zoho Workplace (formerly Zoho Mail) is a solid email service with ample storage and POP or IMAP access. There's also some handy integration with instant messaging and online office suites.