mutt imap header cache benchmarks tested with same .muttrc and /etc/mutt/Muttrc and with dovecot's header cache switched off. The local machine runs the server, the remote one is on the same LAN. locally $ time mutt -e 'exec exit' && echo "^ no header cache" real 0m1.061s user 0m0.495s sys 0m0.066s ^ no header cache $ time mutt -e 'exec exit' && echo "^ writing header cache" real 0m1.393s user 0m0.639s sys 0m0.214s ^ writing header cache $ time mutt -e 'exec exit' && echo "^ using header cache" real 0m0.667s user 0m0.407s sys 0m0.101s ^ using header cache remotely $ time mutt -e 'exec exit' && echo "^ no header cache" real 0m0.916s user 0m0.215s sys 0m0.050s ^ no header cache $ time mutt -e 'exec exit' && echo "^ writing header cache" real 0m1.102s user 0m0.335s sys 0m0.120s ^ writing header cache $ time mutt -e 'exec exit' && echo "^ using header cache" real 0m0.890s user 0m0.195s sys 0m0.015s ^ using header cache