I do have 'any connections' enabled, but I don't see how that will (of itself) address my query?I still understand IMAP to trully "PUSH* notifications from a server to the email client, immediately the server detects a new email.

Therefore, under Nokia messaging (which supports IMAP push, unlike the inbuilt email client when used with gmail), I have "send/receive" set to "as soon as possible" - as that is presumably the only setting that offers *push* rather than *poll*? Your answer either means that I've misunderstood the role of an IMAP client and the delivery mechanism for IMAP delivery notifications (possible as n900 is my first such device) ... or it means that you've misunderstood my usage (or push email in general)?

Thanks for the reply, but I'm no clearer as yet on how autoDisconnect would affect receipt of push email.

My gut feel is that it will delay receipt until either (a) a data connection is established on the n900 for some other purpose or (b) the mail client wakes up to do a scheduled poll (which mine isn't currently configured to do, at least not explicitly). S'pose I should just suck & see - but I'm avoiding install of too many app's from the dev/test areas right now :-)