Limit Number of IMAP connections to Mail Server ...?

I completely agree with you, it's quite ludicrous, but these seem to be the options.

By the way just because it's a hosted service doesn't mean you can't have some sort of cron job running. Ask the provider. But really I don't find this to be an acceptable solution myself.

I found the proceedure that gave best results was to get mail out of the Inbox. Keep it under 500 mails.

Apple do check these posts sometimes but if you want to you can report a bug, I think many of us have done so, but as you can see, to no avail. 😟

Err, i4ict, not sure how those settings relate to limiting the number of IMAP connections to a server.

If anything the option to keep drafts on the server might increase the number of IMAP connections.

In response to the "this affects my poor company"-type replies: Fact is, this is what you get for using free/discount email bundled with your cheap web hosting plan. Keep your web hosting, but move email to a real email host and these issues will be a thing of the past.

Sure it would be nice if Apple would include an option to limit IMAP processes, but it's not likely going to happen and I don't see it being their responsibility. Hostgator's (and many other hosts) practice of counting negligeable IMAP processes against your simultaneous process count is weak, but really mail is just a free add-on to their discount web hosting. That's not Apple's problem.

If email is important to your company, then it's worth more than the nothing you're probably paying for it.

Aloha,

@Rey Mo - why this disrespectful?

It is not about "poor company" discussions!!

Its about that we pay for something which does not work properly, apart from tons of spent hours in researching, trying things out, which are somehow documented standards and just do not work, because of that kind of software behaviour.

I did not want this, but now we use Microsofts "office 365" services.

@hoaxnheimer:

I was not being disrespectful. A bit blunt maybe, but only because some of the people posting here clearly need this wake-up call:

If you have a business and email is important to it, then you are doing your company a disservice by using the free email hosting bundles with your discount web hosting. That's the real problem. Even if Apple changes Mail to let you limit IDLE IMAP processes, this would only serve to accomodate weak email hosting and there are still real reasons that the cheap/free email option is a poor decision for your business.

We live in a time where constructive criticism is increasingly viewed as mean or disrespectful. I see that as a problem because I know that I'm not above criticism. Anyone who has ever run a business will at some point do something silly (like rely on a free email add-on to their discount hosting plan). If someone gives advice that helps correct a poor decision - even if it stings - a good business owner will have an "aha" moment and correct this ridiculous behavior, as you did by going to Office 365.

Just came across this while looking for a solution for my small office, I though I was going crazy for a moment.

I am a one man show that just set his home studio and of course I went with the cheapest possible plan for hosting and the rest, only me for now, don't need anything more.

IMAP connections is a big problem for me since I'm with Hostgator and after reading and trying different setting and email apps for the mac, I found the perfect solution, "Postbox", very nice email app that allows you set how many connections are open for IMAP, mine is set to 1 and problems are gone, Mail app keeps opening connections for cache purposes. Like someone mantioned is free and shouldn't be expecting much out of it.

Postbox (on the App Store) is way better than the Mail app, plenty of more options, specially when it comes to IMAP. It is not free but you get a lot more control, better organized.

I need to mention, I don't work for or have any relationship with Postbox or the authors of it, I just like it that much, and most of all, fixed my issue witht the Mail app and IMAP connections. Hope you guys find this helpfull.

M

Just another Mail user who is requesting that the Mac Mail techs do something to fix this issue. PLEASE.

I have spent two days trying to find a solution after setting up several websites and emails with HostGator, recently, only to have all the sites shut down when Mail is running. Unchecking the "Idle" feature does nothing, as many have experienced. As Pointm suggested Postbox as a good alternative and I'm looking into it now. Unfortunately, they don't have an iPhone or iPad version, yet, and I'm a fan of total integration. For the meantime, I'm having to split my hosting with two different services, one for the websites and the other for emails. It's been a royal pain to have to do this, but I can't risk my sites shutting down.

Thank you @Rey Mo it is fine, I don't have a lot of users, just me.

However, I have moved to my 'own' mail hosting because I don't like Google knowing it ALL. I mean yeah, they know a lot, but not everything everything... just yet.

i'm also on hostgator and use mail, and have found that the mail opens many connections and forgets to close them (hostgator imap limit 25). so when i open mail a second time, my imap connection limit is reached, god knows what'd happen if i had 8+ employees trying to use mail, it prob just wouldn't work and all my sites would be offline coz i get a "500 connection error, too many connections".....

apple could prob use the iphones gyro to guide the shuttle to the moon if they wanted, but can't get imap working...:0(

the ****? we're nearly in 2013!!!!! ***?

i contacted hostgator and spoke online with live chat, and the tech said "yes it's a known prob with mail, use thunderbird" i've been using that for a while and it's quite good but doesn't feel mac like. It does close imap connections when quiting which is great.

having said that. i've also been testing SPARROW for the last week and while i have cpanel open to check connections, it too works correctly e.g. opens and closes connections on quit.

so IMHO if you want a mac like app that feels like mail, use sparrow, looks very similar to mail, and works correctly as in doesn't leave imap open on quit. i'm gonna get the rest of my email over to this prog and keep testing. hope that helps. interestingly, it seems to open less connections even than thunderbird.

another thing i like about sparrow, is they've built in dropbox and cloudapp, so if you want to send mail with large attachments, it sends them to the cloud first and then i guess the recipient gets a link to which they download. (in theory, haven't been on the receiving end yet, so can't varify) thunderbird has a feature like this too with yousendit. mail is so behind now in terms of emailing.

switch to sparrow, or at least give it a try and let us know on here if things work out better as they did for me.

cheers

The discrete IMAP processes are opened one for each type of data you store on the server: Inbox, Trash, Sent, Junk. This is done to make the app more robust, reduce data handling errors, and make the system more effiecient and handle your message faster. Think of it this way, you have 1000 cars each destined for 4 different cities but they all need to get through a toll booth - which is better: One lane per destination city or one lane for all cities? Yes, the former which is exactly what Apple has done here.

Also, as an aside, the fact that many "personal" hosting plans have aribitrary limits on thenumber of concurrent processes is BS and horrible engineering. IMAP processes are almost always idle & they are not using that many resources unless there is actual data flowing. So having the proceses spun up and waiting for something to happen has little to no impact on the host system. These clowns at these numerous hosting companies have no idea what they are doing.

Many of you love the Mail.app and for good reason - it is an awesome piece of software and wonderfully engineered. One reason why is becuase of things like this that make the app far more robust and efficient. Apple did a good thing here and the right thing to do is make the hiosting companies get thier act together rather than compel Apple to make an awesome app worse off so it can "comply".

Cyb3rZ3us wrote:

The discrete IMAP processes are opened one for each type of data you store on the server: Inbox, Trash, Sent, Junk. This is done to make the app more robust, reduce data handling errors, and make the system more effiecient and handle your message faster. Think of it this way, you have 1000 cars each destined for 4 different cities but they all need to get through a toll booth - which is better: One lane per destination city or one lane for all cities? Yes, the former which is exactly what Apple has done here.

Also, as an aside, the fact that many "personal" hosting plans have aribitrary limits on thenumber of concurrent processes is BS and horrible engineering. IMAP processes are almost always idle & they are not using that many resources unless there is actual data flowing. So having the proceses spun up and waiting for something to happen has little to no impact on the host system. These clowns at these numerous hosting companies have no idea what they are doing.

Many of you love the Mail.app and for good reason - it is an awesome piece of software and wonderfully engineered. One reason why is becuase of things like this that make the app far more robust and efficient. Apple did a good thing here and the right thing to do is make the hiosting companies get thier act together rather than compel Apple to make an awesome app worse off so it can "comply".

You do realize that you are replying (resurrecting) a 3 year old posting?

You are still picking a 3 year old post to reply to, I guess you meant to reply to me but failed to do so correctly, I hope that the OP likes your pointless posts turning up in his email 3 years after he posted. And as you can not succesfully pick the correct post to reply I know all I need to know about your abilities.

Futzak

Ok so yes this is a problem, but not with Apple. It's soly to do with the mail server.

Hosts (Cheap) limit the connections becasue if they didn't you probably wouldn't get mail as it would die.

Solution, use thunderbird. It's the only mail application that you can specify the connections. I have the same issue with outlook, but I know most mail clients allow 10 connections, as most mail servers allow 15 per IP.

Thunderbird you can limit to 5 and this will fix that error.

I realise this is an old old problem but can anyone please help. I have 3 laptops linked to ISP/email service SiteGround. S-G has a limit of 10 open Processes and regularly I have 30-32 at which point everything stops and I get strange messages asking me to input my password.

Now I have learned how to kill processes via cPanel - one at a time - but I seem to spend hours per day doing this only to see them spring up again.

I use MS Outlook 2011 on an OSX El Capitan iMac IMAP

OSX Mail on a Macbook Air El Capitan IMAP

MS Outlook 2007 on a Windows 10 Asus laptop

1. Is there any way to restrict opening processes on Outlook or OSX Mail?

2. Is it possible to configure them as POP an be able to see what messages I send and receive on all platforms?

3. Is there any way to block delete processes in cPanel?

I was originally running OSX Mail and POP 3 before SiteGround advised me to switch to IMAP - and then the **** began

The only way to go is to revert to POP and redefine your settings to leave a copy of the emails on the server.

I was livid with my ISP Siteground and spent a lot of time discussing the settings etc. They kept asking me to verify the server names an ports but it was the number of open sessions which kept killing the connection and prompt for password etc.