For those of you out there who choose to use a traditional email client with IMAP to connect to Gmail (of which there are many of you), you may have noticed that checking your Gmail can at times be a bit on the slow side. A reason for this may be because you’re subscribed to all IMAP folders in "full download" mode.

If you unsubscribe from specific folders and/or set them to download headers only, this makes checking mail and overall use of the system much speedier.

For this article I’ll show you how to do this with the Windows Live Mail client. Remember, this app is not just for Hotmail. It can easily do POP and IMAP as well.

The default view in Windows Live Mail is that the menu bar is hidden. Show it by clicking the icon to the far right next to the blue help icon and select Show Menu Bar, like this:

When you do this you will see File, Edit, View, Go, Tools, Actions and Help appear at the top of the mail client.

Select your Gmail email account on the left (clicking Inbox is fine). You should see a button labeled IMAP Folders, like this:

If you do not see this button, make sure your Gmail account is selected.

If it is and you still don’t see it, click View then Customize Toolbar.

Looks like this:

Make sure IMAP Folders is listed under Current buttons as shown above. If not, select it from the left and place it on the right.

When done, click the IMAP Folders button. This will show your currently subscribed list.

Looks like this:

I suggest double-clicking the Starred folder so you can unsubscribe from it. There’s no reason to have it there when using an email client (unless you specifically want it there). On double-click the folder next to the word will disappear, meaning it is unsubscribed. If you want to subscribe again, double click again. Click OK when finished.

Setting a folder to download headers only or not download at all

With IMAP there is absolutely no reason whatsoever to fully download spam, so that’s the example I’ll use here.

Right-click the Spam folder, select Synchronization settings and choose Don’t synchronize or Headers only, like this:

All spams that on mail check from now on will now download just the header and not the body of the message. This will significantly speed up overall use just from doing this alone.

Bear in mind this can be done with any IMAP folder – even the inbox.

In addition, if you encounter Gmail IMAP server timeouts even if only a semi-regular basis, setting folders for headers-only should cure that ill in short order.