Spool Time 30 seconds plus?

Problem reported by Craig Edmonds - 5/10/2026 at 5:30 AM

Submitted

I received a comment from a client the other day asking why incoming emails were taking so long?

We ran a couple of tests and seems when an email from outside is received, it sits in the spool folder for minimum 30 seconds sometime up to 50 seconds, even if the email/domain is trusted.

This is a bit frustrating for those users who receive 2fa codes, feels like a lifetime waiting for them.

Any ideas to speed delivery up?

7 Replies

Reply to Thread

Zach Sylvester Replied

5/10/2026 at 9:47 PM

Employee Post

Hey Craig,

Depending on the traffic your server is getting this could be normal. But, the first thing I would check is your delivery delay in settings->general. Set that to zero if its not already. Other than that it takes time to do spamchecks and virus checks. I suggest opening a ticket with support if you want to dig more into it.

Kind Regards,

Zach Sylvester

Software Developer
SmarterTools Inc.

www.smartertools.com

Douglas Foster Replied

5/11/2026 at 7:41 AM

Thanks for that tip Zach. My delivery delay has been set to 1, but I am seeing a consistent 6-second delay between

Removed from SpamCheckQueue (0 queued or processing)
and
Added to RemoteDeliveryQueue (1 queued; 0/6 processing)

Any idea what is happening during this time period?

I just changed from 1 to 0. Tomorrow, I can check if that makes more than a 1 second difference.

Zach Sylvester Replied

5/11/2026 at 9:38 AM

Employee Post

Hey Douglas,

Thanks for the follow up. SmarterMail's spool is not event based. It uses a hardcoded pulling interval of 3 seconds per loop. Because of this, a 6 second time is normal.This means that spamchecks took 3 seconds. Setting the delivery delay to 0 should save a second, however.

Let me know if this answers your question.

Kind Regards,

Zach Sylvester

Software Developer
SmarterTools Inc.

www.smartertools.com