Please note: I no longer use IMAP Partners. They were nice guys, but the filtering system their email server used was horrendously crude and cumbersome at best. I'm now using Pair for my IMAP email, which allows me to use procmail, still the best email filtering system out there. I'm very, very happy.

I use IMAP email. I've been using it for the last 5 years or so, and I'll never use POP3 again. I use a lot of different machines, and IMAP helps ensure that I always see the same email, no matter what machine I'm on.

My IMAP provider is IMAP Partners. My one complaint about the service has been the filters. Filters are extremely important to me. I get a lot of junk mail, which I try to filter right out of my life, and I also get a lot of email, which I try to filter into the appropriate folders. IMAP Partners provides Web-based filtering, but it's not very useful, especially for someone like me, who's both a nerd and a person obsessed with filtering (prior to IMAP Partners, my email was hosted on a UNIX box in NYC, and I became obsessed with procmail as a means of filtering).

Recently I've been disregarding the Web-based filtering in favor of using ssh to connect directly to the server to import and export my filters there. It works a lot better (although I still wish I had procmail). Below are some commands that I've found useful.

Get help:
help

Export the filters:
filter export (mailbox=INBOX)

Import the filters:
filter import (mailbox=INBOX)

After importing new filters, test to make sure they work:
filter test (mailbox=INBOX) user.scott.junk

List all mailboxes:
mailbox list *

Get help with Adding Filters, which has most of the info you need for filters:
help filter add