The Sun Message Store handles the parsing of messages from Internet Mail Access Protocol version 4 (IMAP4) clients and Post Office Protocol version 3 (POP3) clients in different ways. IMAP4 messages are preparsed and indexed when inserted into the Sun Message Store; no parsing is necessary when messages are accessed by mail client users. POP3 messages do not require parsing; therefore, the Sun Message Store does not parse these messages.
By default, the Sun Message Store treats all messages as messages from IMAP4 clients.
Since parsing takes CPU cycles and creates a need for more hard disk space, you may want to tune the amount of parsing that your mail server performs. If a majority of the messages stored by the Sun Message Store are from POP3 clients, you can change the default setting to POP3. The Sun Message Store will treat all messages as messages from POP3 clients and not parse them.