IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol) has been around since the 1980’s, but Comcast has never supported it with their comcast.net email accounts. IMAP has many benefits over POP, but I won’t go over those here.

Windows 8’s native email client doesn’t support POP, and this has finally been enough for Comcast to venture into supporting IMAP. Currently support is only in beta, and you only have the option of POP or IMAP – not both like most email providers have offered since the 80’s and 90’s.

How do you get IMAP? You sign up for the IMAP Trial from XFINITY® and cross your fingers that all goes well. The page does say “This page is for those subscribers that use Windows 8” but if you read the terms, it’s not platform specific so Windows 7 and prior as well as Mac users can take advantage of IMAP as well.