> Thanks for your reply, is this a limitation of pegasus or the IMAP protocol ?

Depends a lot both on the server and the client.  Some servers support more options that others, some clients store a lot more data at the client system.  If you were to cache all of the IMAP4 data via Pegasus Mail then it would be able to search the cache without even being connected to the host.

>  
> I have set up squirrelmail running from our server and connecting up to dovecot and it works fine including the searching of email body
> so I assume squirrelmail is just searching through IMAP. It would be really handy to be able to do the same with pegasus. I guess I cant
> have everything  :)

I my case I find the Squirrelmail gets really slow when the folders get large with most IMAP4 servers, maybe Dovecot is more efficient with server side searching than the UW type IMAP4 servers.

Is there a way to use IMAP search without downloading all the emails ?

I was sure its built in to the IMAP protocol to search server side but dont seem to be able to find any reference to it within Pegasus. We have chosen Pegasus specifically because of the excellent implementation of IMAP meaning we are in total control of what's stored locally (ie nothing). I really don't want to have to download all the message bodies just to search. For information we are connecting to our own remote email server running dovecot.

Thanks in advance

Is there a way to use IMAP search without downloading all the emails ?

Thanks for your reply, is this a limitation of pegasus or the IMAP protocol ? 

I have set up squirrelmail running from our server and connecting up to dovecot and it works fine including the searching of email body so I assume squirrelmail is just searching through IMAP. It would be really handy to be able to do the same with pegasus. I guess I cant have everything  :)

I suppose I can log on with squirrelmail when I need to search.