McAfee (and other antiviri) & E-mail

I have 12-13K messages...it takes for ever to go from one to another.
Win8.1, Recent Thunderbird client. Quad core CPU.

how to keep it moving and still have the antivirus working?

With McAfee runnin the E-mail is sluggish to the tune of 1 minute from one msg to another. when McAfee disabled it is some what better...when McAfee removed Thunderbird worked fast enough to use.

Try Microsoft Security Essentials and see if you have the same issue.