Mail app: Display total mailbox SIZE, and, indicate mail-searching "activity"

I just put OS X Leopard (10.5.2) on my G4 iMAC and am now using the latest version of Mail (Version 3.2).

I want to be able to view the total size of a given mailbox (which was visible using my old System 10.3.8, using an older version of Mail). However, with the Leopard version, I only see the total number of messages displayed about the listing of the messages, and, not, the total mailbox size.

I tried to implement a previous posted "fix" discussed on the "hints" link, namely: Enable the "columns" setting (under the "View" drop-down menu) to display the message size for each message, and, secondly, enable the "Display Status Bar" setting, also under the "View" drop-down menu. Unfortunately, I do not see the "Display Status Bar" option under the "View" drop-down menu.

How can I enable the system to display the total size of mail boxes, etc.?

On a somewhat related issue... In my old Mail app, when I would click the icon "Get Mail," I would see a "swirling wheel," indicating the the app is searching and/or downloading new mail. In this new version of Mail, I don't see any such "activity" indicator. Instead, I only hear a beep when the process is completed. This is very inconvenient, since, I never know if there is something happening, etc. Is there any way to enable the Mail app to display this dynamic icon?

Thank you, and, I'm so glad that your service exists!!

[schmunzelmon]

I could not see an answer to this. How can I see how large my mailbox is in leopard?

1. not
2. Library/Mail/Mailboxes/subfolderifihaveone/themailboxiamlookingfor.mbox
3. ?

what is a good maximal size for mailboxes?

1. more than 2 GB is lethal
2. make a new mailbox when it starts to take longer to display the messages in there
3. ??

thanks