Mail freezes computer temporarily when retriving mail w/14 GB Mail folder

Question

Hi,
I'd bet that my mailbox being enormous is why my computer basically locks up for a minute or so whenver I have mail, even little ones with no attachments. Here are the specifics:
~/library/mail is 13.73 GB
~/library/mail downloads is 536 mb
~/library/caches is 142.3 mb
19605 messages in inbox
I'm still in 10.4.1 but planning on upgrading to 10.5 shortly. However, this is driving me nuts and I'd really rather not delete anything as I, as I'm sure others do, need to search for old emails/attachments fairly often.
I think I used Mailbox Splitter or something like that once, that helped with a problem like this a while back, but I'm wondering what I might be able to do now to speed things up here without losing access to my old emails. Thanks!
Bob

Answer 1

Personally, I think those other people had some disk corruption beforehand... be certain to verify your HD with Disk Utility first.
The cache is the biggest spped factor, size is second.
The folling almost always speeds up everything after 1, 2, 3 reboots.
Might give a try with Applejack...
http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/19596
After installing, reboot holding down CMD+s, then when the DOS like prompt shows, type in...
applejack AUTO
Then let it do all 5 of it's things.
At least it'll eliminate some questions if it doesn't fix it.
The 5 things it does are...
Correct any Disk problems.
Repair Permissions.
Clear out Cache Files.
Repair/check several plist files.
Dump the VM files for a fresh start.