Speeding up Mail.app
Tuesday, March 6th, 2007Tim Gaden at Hawkwings has posted a method for speeding up Mail.app by vacuuming the Envelope Index. I’ve got several years worth of four POP accounts running in my Mail.app, and this quick trick trimmed down the loading time significantly. There are a few ways to accomplish this, but for those who like to get down and dirty with Terminal here’s how I did it:
1. Quit Mail.
2. Open Terminal.
3. Type the following:
cd ~/Library/Mail
sqlite3 Envelope\ Index
An sqlite> prompt will appear.
At that prompt, type vacuum subjects;.
After a short delay, the prompt will return. Type Control-D to exit.
4. Restart Mail and enjoy the extra speed.
A lot of great comments followed the post, including a few ideas on other ways to achieve this same task through Terminal. Most interestingly, a follow-up entry explained how to use an easy AppleScript (or an Automater script, if that’s your flavour) to automate this task through iCal. It goes without saying that you’ll only notice great changes the first time you use it, but automation will keep your Envelope Index from getting unwieldy.