High Mail CPU with El Capitan

According to a couple of review sites I trust, the best replacement security program is Avira. It's also free, and at least one of the articles I read rates it higher than Avast (or anything else, even paid / subscription programs). https://www.avira.com/

A few days after the restart of my rogue IMAP account the high cpu issue returned. I disabled the mail shield in Avast and nothing happened. Then I rebooted and all was OK - was still OK after 2 days. Decided to remove Avast and install Avira - surprisingly it was heavy on CPU - not a killer but far from what I expected since reviews had said otherwise. I think its still Beta for Mac and I read that bugs are being cleared - probably in better shape under Windows. I see that Grant reports 'spamseive' as good so maybe I will give that a try. I have used Avast since 2012 without problems - be it Apple or Avast, it will probably get fixed and then I may return. What an effing waste of time!

I got back from the Apple Store researching today this issue. While she could not for certain pinpoint issue she was able to find a rogue spread sheet file that was in an outbox folder in the mail library folder but I was showing nothing in my outbox in the application. She also recommend the setting up a second user scenario but decided to go ahead and do a reinstall of the operating system. Will see if it comes back.

I'm piling on too. I can find lots of posts describing the problem and no real solution!

OS 10.11.2 with a mac.com e-mail address using Mail on a 27-inch iMac, Late 2013.

My CPU usage has been as high as 250+%!

Closing the app and restarting "resets" the problem and the email updates but then it quickly stalls again. Not happening on my other machines though (MBA or any IOS device).

I uninstalled Avast and up till now, I only see relatively high percentages of CPU usage when I instruct mail to get new mail for all accounts (order of magnitude is about 140-180% - peaks of >200% - for about 10-15 seconds).

Would you guys let us know how your CPU percentages for mail are when refreshing and how long it takes to revert to normal?

By the way, I posted the problem on the Avast forum, with a link to this thread, and, from my Avast account page, I brought it to their attention. Wondering wether hey will respond.

In te meantime I'm looking into alternatives for mail, Postbox seems the most promising so far.

Gerard

I expect it depends on what else you are doing and how many cores you have.

for 15 seconds, when first open or checking all accounts, Mail will use significant CPU - and more if you are also checking spam, viruses,e tc. Then it should fall to negligible (< 1%).

Somehow high usage for a few seconds sounds normal. It is a program after all. It performs work.

Okay Grant, I get your drift. Of course a program uses some CPU.

But in similar circumstances, Postbox does not ever exceed 25% CPU.

That's a rather significant difference, for which IMHO is no justification.

Apple mail does not do THAT much more in terms of functionality.

I have been suffering this Mail app problem with the iCloud account for months and have had several long sessions with very helpful Apple support people via phone. However any solutions we tried only gave relief for a few days and like a lot of people report the issue returns after a couple of days.

Anyway seeing the recent reference to AVAST being involved I tried DISABLING THE MAIL SHIELD (not even uninstalling the programme) and it instantly solved the problem!! Mail app downloaded everything as normal and caught up. What relief!... :-)

Regarding using alternatives - the reason I want to stay using the Mail app is because I am heavily reliant of the fantastic Mailtags plug in <http://www.indev.ca/MailTags.html> which enables custom tags to organise and keep track of different projects.

folks,

I'm neither defending Avast (which i think is not needed) nor Apple (who changes APis like i change socks).

But why is it surprising that a program that looks at every incoming mail and attachment,

often scanning the entire payload for patterns, will increase CUP ---- maybe by a LOT?

Not only that but if you look on their site, there is no mention of El Cap compatibility - its as if they disregard it.

Quite obviously, something changed in the OS that they interact with. Note that all developers had test environments long ago and technical documentation so they could make changes and at least advise users as to whether it was compatible with X.11. They obviously did not.

Dump useless programs. Practice safe computing. Check compatibility. Your lives will improve slightly.

Grant

I'm not saying all is necessarily well.

But what's the difference between using 100% of a core for 10 seconds vs using 25% of a core for 40 seconds?

Its still 10 CPU-seconds.

I do find it high. I have nearly a dozen (large) IMAP accounts, i have an OLD machine, and i use less.

G

Oh Grant, come on...

As I stated some posts back, I completely un-installed Avast. So it is NOT scanning all mails, it does NOTHING anymore.

So it is totally the OS X mail app that is to blame for this.

And the operand term in my last post was "in similar circumstances"...

"Practice safe computing. Check compatibility" my ***...

Read, and ye shall prosper.

[edit] We apparently cross-posted, which takes the edge of for a bit... [/edit]

Gerard-

Folks is plural. You are singular. read all the continuing comments - my reply was not all about you.

read all the continuing comments " i use X, I use Y, I use Z" - as if nothing has been said.

I also maintain that an app using significant CPU for a brief time, especially if other tasks are low, is not an indication of trouble.

All i know is that on may machines of different types i have no issues. So what's different?

G

Grant, like I edited in my previous post, we apparently cross-posted.

By the way, I read the whole thread...

I do not dispute your remark that doing stuff takes CPU cycles, and sometimes a lot of them.

What I find peculiar is that OS X mail seems to use significantly more of them then i.e. Postbox.

That can't be justified imho. Something's rotten there, as you stated yourself: "I'm not saying all is necessarily well."

Lets just hope that this issue is going to be looked into, and solved soon.

Gerard

Just a data point. I just checked mail;, read yours, clicked on the link. Mail jumped to 2.1% CPU.

After about 20 seconds it fell to quiescent - 0.1%

So the problem is?

My point is "what is different in your system"?

G

Just about the same here Grant, it's only when instructed to check for new mail that it goes thru the roof (between 120 and 170% CPU for about 15 seconds).

Whereas Postbox goes to max 25% under the same conditions (AFAICT).

I inserted some snapshots taken from the Activity app (Dutch version).

For OSX mail:

For Postbox: