7.1.1.1   If Apple Mail Is Running Slowly

Slow Processing of Messages or Beachball in Mail (Mail Extension Setup)

1. Make sure that you have granted SpamSieve Full Disk Access, as this massively speeds up the Check inboxes for new messages not sent to Mail extension, Filter spam messages in other mailboxes, and Add green flag to unread good messages features.

   

2. It may help to uncheck SpamSieve in the Extensions tab of Apple Mail’s settings, while leaving Enable spam filtering using Mail extension enabled in SpamSieve’s settings. This can work around bugs in Mail that can cause Mail to redownload a message or hang if it’s talking to the SpamSieve Mail extension while SpamSieve is filtering a mailbox.

   

3. You can reduce the filtering overhead by setting SpamSieve to check for new messages less frequently. This can also help if a slow network connection is preventing Mail from fully downloading all the messages in a timely manner.

4. If you have a very large inbox (more than 200,000 messages) or other mailbox selected for filtering, SpamSieve is able to quickly check it for new messages that need to be filtered. However, there can be a slight delay when SpamSieve finds a new message and asks Mail to read it or move it to the Junk mailbox. If there are many such new messages, this delay can be noticeable in Mail’s responsiveness. You can see in Settings ‣ Apple Mail ‣ Filtering which mailbox is currently being filtered to see which one might be causing the slowness. The Select Mailboxes to Filter… sheet also shows the total number of messages in each mailbox. Once you’ve identified the slow mailbox, you can speed up its filtering by moving older messages to an unfiltered mailbox.

   

5. If necessary, for troubleshooting purposes, you can temporarily turn off SpamSieve by selecting Disable spam filtering in Apple Mail in Settings ‣ Apple Mail ‣ Setup.

   

6. If you need further assistance, please see the Sending in a “Sample” Report section for how you can record what Mail is doing so that we can investigate the cause of the slowness.

General Slowness in Mail

1. Go to Mail ‣ Settings ‣ Accounts ‣ Account Information and set Download Attachments to All for each account.

   

   If there is a particular old message that you want to train, but which has not been fully downloaded, it may help to open it in its own window and/or to use File ‣ Save As… to save it in Raw Message Source format. That can trigger Mail to finish the download. Another option is to copy the message to a different mailbox and then train the copy.

2. In Mail’s Settings window, click on the Accounts tab, then your account, then the Server Settings tab, and uncheck Automatically manage connection settings. (This option is not available for all account types. In previous versions of Mail, this option was called Automatically detect and maintain account settings and was in the Advanced tab.)

3. Change the AppleMailPlugInSetIsJunk option in SpamSieve’s esoteric preferences to not mark messages as junk. This can work around problems caused by Mail’s own junk filter being slow.

4. If you are using the Apple Mail - Remote Training, Apple Mail - SaneBox, or Apple Mail - Server Junk Mailbox script, try unchecking the Mail rule that runs the script and see if that helps. You can also run the script in Script Editor to see if it is taking a long time to complete.

5. If you need further assistance, please see the Sending in a “Sample” Report section for how you can record what Mail is doing so that we can investigate the cause of the slowness.

Slow Launching of Mail (Mail Plug-In Setup)

If Mail is launching slowly (which can cause SpamSieve to deactivate its Mail rule) and you are using macOS 10.14 or later, the slowness is probably caused by a Mail bug. After a Mail plug-in (any plug-in, not just SpamSieve) has been installed for a long time, Mail sometimes pauses before loading it. There are two ways to work around this:

Manual

Deactivate and then reactivate the plug-in:

1. Go to the Rules tab of Mail’s Settings and uncheck the SpamSieve rule.

2. Go to the General tab of Mail’s Settings and click on Manage Plug-ins…. Uncheck SpamSieve.mailbundle and restart Mail.

   Note: It is important to temporarily disable the plug-in this way, from within Mail, rather than using the Uninstall Plug-In… command, as Mail has access to reset files that SpamSieve cannot access.

3. Go back to Manage Plug-ins… and check SpamSieve.mailbundle. Now restart Mail again.

4. Go to the Rules tab of Mail’s Settings and check the SpamSieve rule to make it active again.

This will usually speed up Mail’s launching for several months, if not longer, at which point you may need to repeat the procedure above. If you find that Mail slows down again sooner than that, please let us know.

Automatic (Experimental)

On macOS 13 and with SpamSieve 2.9.52 or later, you can click this link to tell SpamSieve to enable its automatic workaround for this issue. You can also click here to disable the workaround. Please let us know if you encounter any problems.

Hang When Launching Mail (Mail Plug-In Setup)

If Mail is not just slow (as above) but does not finishing launching at all (after waiting a few minutes), it may help to:

1. Reboot your Mac in safe mode.
2. Reboot your Mac in again (in regular mode).
3. Click Install Plug-In.