Is POP server providing the emails in the order of mail sent time?

Question

I am fetching the emails from the POP server.

I am using the following logic to find the mail which is received newly.

if(currentMail.getSentTime() > lastMailFetchedTime) { //Processing the email } else { System.out.println("Mail sent earlier. It might be fetched already"); }

At regular time interval , Some emails are missed from the POP mail fetcher(For Google Apps account). I have analyzed the mail fetching process and identified that, POP server is giving the older emails which is not given in the previous mail fetching.

Is Gmail POP server provides the mail based on the mail sent time(I am not getting it in proper order)?

If it is not given using the mail sent time means, How can I fetch the newly created emails without using IMAP ?

Answer 1

Think of the POP3 server as storing messages in a sequential list where the last message in the list is always the most recently received message.

So essentially it "sorts" them in order of arrival, but this might not be the same as "Date Sent".

Answer 2

POP3 server is automatically sorted messages, but only up to minutes.