Speed up IMAP searches on Thunderbird
(Well, sort of)
In my last post I wrote how I had reorganised my mail system so that it was flatter and to rely on searches/virtual folders to organise my archives. And I mentioned the biggest drawback of this method is that searches take a while especially if you use IMAP like I do. I searched for a solution but maybe my google-fu is a bit rusty but I didn’t turn up anything. Some mentioned using google/yahoo/microsoft desktop search programs but I didn’t want to install any of them.
I figured out a partial solution, before you go into a virtual folder/saved search, just go offline. That way Thunderbird will use the local copies of the messages when it does the search. And voila, instant searches! It works best if you keep your mail synched often. If you are searching through a virtual folder that might contain recent messages when you go offline select download in response to “Do you want to download messages for offline use?”
Hope it helps others out there that come across the same problem.
