The IMAP4 specification describes a rich protocol for use in building clients and servers for storage, retrieval, and manipulation of electronic mail. Because the protocol is so rich and has so many implementation choices, there are often trade-offs that must be made and issues that must be considered when designing such clients and servers. This document attempts to outline these issues and to make recommendations in order to make the end products as interoperable as possible. This memo provides information for the Internet community.