For decades, Macs had a reputation for being a secure platform. Viruses are a common problem among Apple users. Other issues you might look at include checking to see if your hard drive is filling up, checking to make sure your RAM is functional and sufficient to run your desired apps, and checking for viruses. They just won’t solve your problem completely.
If it doesn’t look like Apple Mail is the culprit, you can still put these tips to use. If not, you might have another problem, in which case the tweaks I’ll mention won’t help you immediately. Chances are, Mail is eating up a bunch of system resources. Monitor the various apps you’re running as you load up Mail. Hit Command-Space and type in Activity Monitor in the launch window. Sometimes there are other problems, anything from hardware issues to software memory leaks eating up system resources. The first thing you should do is check to make sure the reason your computer is acting slow is because of Mac Mail.