How to speed up Eudora “processing” new downloaded emails

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For quite a while, my Eudora v7.1.0.9, has been taking a very long time to process new emails that have been downloaded, sometimes up to a minute. True, my inbox is 22Mb, but it has never taken this long before. Here’s the solution…

I discovered that Microsoft Security Essentials (MSE) was scanning my Inbox.mbx file every time new emails arrive. It was this that was taking the time. The solution was to tell MSE to ignore Eurdora:

  1. In the System tray (bottom right), right click on Microsoft Security Essentials and click Open.
  2. Click the Setting tab
  3. Click Excluded files and locations, then click the Browse button, and select your Eudora data folder (where you inbox is located). Depending on how and where you installed Eurdora, this could be in c:/program_files/eudora, or C:/ProgramData/eudora. If your inbox is in neither of these locations, you’ll have to search for it.
  4. Click Save changes.

I found that this change reduced Eurdora’s processing time to just a few seconds.

Security Note

The downside, is that we have told Microsoft Security Essentials not to check for viruses in the main source of entry: emails. You may wish to consider:

  1. Reduce the size of your inbox
  2. Tell MSE to check your Eudora folders, but just not the inbox (this is better option, is it will still scan attachments)
  3. Move to Google Mail. For advice, see “Email migration from Eudora (or Thunderbird) to GMail>”
  4. Use an alternative virus checker, that scanning incoming email data, but not your whole inbox