Q: Mail is not receiving new emails in a timely fashion- if at all.

I have seen this problem on my iMac 27 but not my MacBook Air (MBA).  Both computers are running OS X 10.9.4.  Also there is no delay in receiving  new massages when using my iPhone.  The MBA will receive new email massages as soon as they are available on the ISP server.  The iMac will only receive new messages if I quit Mail, wait about 30 seconds, and the reopen Mail.  This has the effect of requesting any new messages that may have been on the new massages held my the ISP server.  All my email accounts are for IMAP messages.  Also, the approach to select a different mail request time (auto, 1 minute intervals, etc.) has no effect on correcting this problem.  Why should there be a difference between the iMac and the MBA?

The fix suggested by Apple support is a poor work around and does not allow Mail to respond automatically to new mail stored on the ISP server.  I have no idea why it works on the MBA but not on the iMac.  Apple needs to update OS X to fix this problem with Mail.

Even though my iMac is running Parallels, I do not think this is a contributing factor in the ability to not receive new emails.  The iMac and Mail operated just fine with OS X 10.9.1 even with Parallels!    The latest OS X release 10.9.4 had no effect in resoling this problem.

By the way, Outlook for Mac 2011 shows new emails as soon as they are available on the ISP server.  However, Outlook has other problems associated with account authentication, and it does not integrate with all Apple services, i.e., calendar, contacts, reminders, tasks, etc., so I switched to Apple Mail.

Please Apple make Mail work correctly.

Send Apple feedback. They won't answer, but at least will know there is a problem. If enough people send feedback, it may get the problem solved sooner.

Mail/Provide Mail Feedback

Thanks for the suggestion.  I have posted this same feedback to Apple.  Let's all hope that Apple understands the severity of this problem and makes a expedited change to OS X/Mail so we don't have to take Mail off line/back on line, or Exit mail and restart Mail.

Charles

Just a followup to this problem which seems to have gone away.  After putting up with the inconvenience of having to get emails by taking Mailboxes off line and then taking them back on line each time for several months, the problem may have been a firewall configurations.  A few weeks ago I updated to Yosemite and to my surprise that did not fix the problem!  However, in the last few days I have installed a new firewall program after getting a renewal for my earlier Norton Internet Security 5.  I tried ESET CyberSecurity but found it was always taking too much of the CPU, and not allowing my network to easily communicate amongst its components,  It is quite complicated in this area to configure EST.  By the way, Mail still did not change its bad behavior.   In desperation, I uninstalled ESET and Installed the latest Norton Internet Security program.   This was easy to configure, everything works across the network, and it does not hog the CPU.  Surprise surprise, I suddenly noticed that the Mail icon in the dock was showing email coming in with steadily incrementing numbers,  opening up Mail I found many new emails waiting for me.

I don;t know positively if this was a firewall configuration issue, or the effect of changing internet security apps.  However, the problem seems to have gone away.  Let's hope it stays away!

Charles

I have the same problem.  Mail updates continually on my iad and iPhone but lags way behind on my iMac even though it is set to update  Every Minute.  As far as I know I do not have any firewall iinstalled. 

Any other suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

You might want to consider starting a new discussion. Since this one is a couple of years old, less people are likely to look at it. A new post would be much more visible. You can link to this one.