Does Mail download the emails to the computer when new mail is detected?

[xTRIGGER092x]

So, I'm debating whether to ditch my antivirus on my iMac or not, and this is one of my deciding factors: I seem to get a lot of spam on my Hotmail account. Specifically, emails from "girls" with an attachment included (which I can only assume is malware, I've never actually opened any of the emails). On Mail, most of them get filtered out automatically, but occasionally one gets into my actual inbox. So, my question is, does Mail actually download these emails when it detects mail, because I really don't want any risky attachments (nor the email itself) automatically downloaded to my computer.

 

[Mal]

It does, but none of those attachments can harm your computer. In addition, you can have Mail prompt you instead of automatically downloading messages over a certain size, which can help there. Remember, though, those are Windows viruses/trojans, and cannot affect your Mac.

jW