Mail.app with GMail IMAP very slow?
February 20th, 2008 | Software |For the last two days I watched as Leopard’s Mail.app tried to download 1 email at an average of 1kb per second.
My internet connection in general was fine yet it looked like it was going to take Mail the entire duration of Lent to download this email.
I figured I must have a setting wrong. I checked Google’s IMAP configuration instructions for Mail 3.x on Leopard. No Joy.
I tried using the information they provided for Mail 2.x setup. Those emails were still crawling down.
Finally I checked Google’s details for configuring other IMAP clients
It says you can use either port 465 or 587 for outgoing mail. I had been using 587, so I changed to port 465. Hey presto! Emails are now flying down. I don’t understand how a dodgy setup for outgoing mail could affect my incoming mail but I’m more than relieved to see Mail.app doing it’s thing now.
April 2nd, 2008 at 2:50 pm
How do you find the overal speed of gmail imap with Mail overall after downloading all the headers? Mine seems fine for a bit then incredibly slow after .
April 2nd, 2008 at 2:57 pm
@James
It seems to be ok now. Changing the port as mentioned above seemed to help, although logically I can’t see how. Sometimes my mail still comes down painfully slow but then again the throughput of my pityful 1mb BT Ireland broadband connection resembles a leaky tap.
August 13th, 2008 at 3:03 am
I have been using gmail imap for a number of weeks and it has been fine. Over the last 24 hours, it has got really slow. It is taking 20 times as long to do anything and i know that my internet connection is not the problem.
I have the correct email port. Any ideas?
August 18th, 2008 at 12:20 pm
@Alex, sorry man no idea. The settings above did the job for me, I’m not sure what else to do.
May 13th, 2009 at 12:19 pm
It worked fine for me!
May 17th, 2009 at 9:16 pm
I cant see anywhere to change the port number, I changed it to 465 under mail prefs and that stopped anything from working, couldnt connect
Ive read that “And it is certainly a Mail.app issue. Gmail IMAP loads quickly and reliably under Thunderbird for OS X. Mail.app is the problem”
Its soo slow and rediculously buggy, might have to switch to Thunderbird I think, Ive always had issues with mail
is yours sill working sweet?
September 25th, 2009 at 1:44 am
Great tip! Worked like a charm for me!
October 20th, 2009 at 8:41 am
Great, thank you