[Annihialator]

I have been getting real ticked off with Mail recently.

A friend of mine often sends me large (2-5MB) attatchments and mail.app does not cope at all. Even though I have an 8MB broadband pipe (and at these times can download at 600kb/s+) I only get a download rate of 10kb/s approx from the mail server.

Even more annoying is that I have some folders containing things like jokes/funnies that have been downloaded already and when I click a message in one of these folders, I get the 'Loading Message' message for ages, until I get too annoyed and close the window.

I have .mac mail sync setup and have synced before trying this.

Surely this can't be right? Am I the only one with these problems?

[MichiganRich]

Yes, you are 100% correct. Because you have problems with either the app or your mail server, the application is completely unusable by every Mac user in the world. I wonder how I've manged the last few years using it and having it work perfectly for everything I do.

[analogika]

Rebuild your mailboxes.

Select a mailbox in your mailbox list (at left), then go to "Mailbox" --> "Rebuild" (or whatever, bottom menu item).

Do this for each of your mailboxes.

That helped on my system when Mail suddenly started getting excruciatingly slow; all has been well, since.

[Barry]

you could have an 80 pettabyte pipe, but the mail server probably has restrictions on the size of email it will handle, so it makes mail seem slow. Its not mail apps fault.

.Mac does not sync your actual mailboxes. You need to back these up withe another program.
after backing up your mailboxes, I would delete old unneeded email.

I would try what analogika said...rebuild all you mailboxes. I would also erase deleted messages (you'd be surprised how many people overlook this).