Michael Rothwell has updated his excellent IMAP-IDLE plugin for Mail.app, which adds support to Mail for IMAP’s IDLE command 
, so that the server tells Mail.app when new mail arrives rather than Mail needing to poll the server.
This is obviously a much more intelligent way of handling the polling process.
The new version (1.05) contains a number of tweaks. It more reliably handles IDLE status messages and is smarter about detecting whether your mail server supports the IDLE command.
If it hasn’t worked for you in the past, it might now.
IMAP-IDLE is freeware and is available from Michael’s web site .
Any result with dot mac? I haven’t been able to get this one to work with dot mac.
Never mind… I read the old article. Bummer.
[I am unable to comment on the site of the plugin-author, hence here]
I tested this plugin once again, but I would like to see an IMAP-plugin that obeys my default folders: when I use this plugin “Trash” becomes “Deleted Messages” and “Sent” becomes “Sent Messages”.
This happens on my Dovecot POP3-IMAP-server and also confuses Roundcube webmail…
Is this something I’m overlooking or is it Mail.app or…?
The plugin does not issue any mailbox or message manipulation commands, so I’m not sure how it would cause that interesting behavior.
It logs in, requests server capabilities, selects the INBOX, and requests IDLE mode. Do you get any funny messages in your console log?
Awesome, awesome, awesome. Works perfectly (so far) with my ISP’s IMAP server.
Yes, it’s pretty good, isn’t it?! :)
You say that “This is obviously a much more intelligent way of handling the polling process.”
Consider that IDLE requires a connection to be maintained to the mail server. This is fine for small installations, but lots of open connections can bog down a mail server with thousands of users. In that case, depending on other circumstances, IDLE may not be “more intelligent.”