How to limit Apple Mail (desktop)?

[Joseph Tam]

Rupert Gallagher writes:

> By default, Apple Mail downloads all e-mails from? server's account.
> Previous versions of this client allowed to opt-out.  The latest two
> versions? however, only allow to opt-out from downloading the
> attachments. 
> 
> The stress on the server is unbearable.  We cannot ask users to be
> considerate: this is the default behaviour of Apple Mail.

(I'm coming into this thread late.)

I'm having a hard time visualizing the cause of your problem.  Most big
messages have the bulk of their data as attachments (which you state the
mail reader can defer downloading).  Also, readers usually cache local
copies, so they're downloaded once.

So what the composition of all this traffic?  Are you saying the mail
client is ultra dumb and repeatedly downloading entire messages, read
and unread, attachment and all (i.e. you're truly bandwidth limited?)
Do your users typically have many concurrent readers for the same mailbox?
What kind of session numbers are you supporting? 100s? 1000s? 10K+?

Your data outflow has an incoming counterpart: if you're having a
hard time serving it out, is your MTA also having a hard time with the
incoming volume?  Can it simply be the case you've underscaled your
remote mail service?

Joseph Tam <jtam.home at gmail.com>