Limiting Simultaneous Mail Connections

Mac Mail

The "Idle" option in Mac Mail causes your device to continuously connect to the server for mail and leave connections open.  Follow these steps to turn off this option:

  1.  Launch Mac Mail and from the "Mail" menu on the top left, select "Preferences"
  2. From here click on "Accounts" and select the email account you wish to change.
  3. From here click on the "Advanced" tab.
  4. Un-check the option titled "Use Idle command if server supports it"
  5. Apply the changes and exit.

Outlook

If you are using Microsoft Outlook as your mail client, you will need to adjust the number of mail connections to the server per hour by following these steps:

  1. Launch Outlook and hold "Ctrl+Alt+S"
  2. This will bring up the "Send/Receive groups" menu
  3. Select the group with the email account you wish to change settings for or simply select "All Accounts"
  4. From here you can see an option titled "Schedule an automatic send/receive every X minutes"
  5. This option will let you setup the number of minutes Outlook waits before connecting to the server to check for mail.  For our shared servers this option must be set to make sure there are less than 45 connections an hour from one IP.

6. Check the box on this option and then enter multiples of two for every account in the group. (e.g. 1 account = 2 minutes, 2 accounts = 4 minutes, etc.)

7. Close the menu

Thunderbird

If you are using Thunderbird as your mail client, you will need to adjust the number of mail connections to the server per hour by following these steps:

  1. Launch Thunderbird and sign into the account you wish to change settings for
  2. At the top of the left hand panel, right click your address and click on "Settings"
  3. From the here click on "Server Settings" on the left side of the menu
  4. On this menu, under "Server Settings" you should see the option titled "Check for new messages every X minutes"
  5. This option will let you setup the number of minutes Thunderbird waits before connecting to the server to check for mail.  For our shared servers this option must be set to make sure there are less than 45 connections an hour from one IP.
  6. Check the box next to this option and set the number of minutes to at least every 3 minutes.
  7. Click okay to close the menu
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