Handle Slow PHP cli with IMAP extension on macOS

About two weeks ago, I installed a PHP project that required the IMAP extension. I installed it via MacPorts, and everything seemed okay. However, after that, I experienced very slow execution when running PHP via the CLI.

I am using macOS Monterey, which was released in 2021. It turns out that the issue has existed since 2016 on macOS Sierra. This was discussed on Stack Overflow in 2017:

• https://stackoverflow.com/questions/44878887/mac-os-sierra-slow-work-php-imap-cli

The issue has already been reported to php-src:

• https://github.com/php/php-src/issues/11673

I couldn’t reproduce the issue on Linux Ubuntu 22.04.

Following the Stack Overflow answer mentioned above, I tried to add my hostname to the /etc/hosts file. First, I obtained the hostname:

➜  ~ hostname

Abduls-Mac-mini.local

My original /etc/hosts file had the following entries:

127.0.0.1   localhost
::1         localhost

Then, I added the hostname to the third column on each row:

127.0.0.1   localhost Abduls-Mac-mini.local
::1         localhost Abduls-Mac-mini.local

After that, the issue was resolved, and it became fast again. That’s it! 😉

References:

1. https://github.com/php/php-src/issues/11673
2. https://stackoverflow.com/questions/44878887/mac-os-sierra-slow-work-php-imap-cli