Abstract: A network device and a method for processing an email request are disclosed. The network device includes a communications interface and a processor. The communications interface is configured to communicate with a client device and an email server. The processor is configured to receive a first request from the client device for fetching a portion of an email message. The processor generates a second request for fetching the email message in its entirety according to the first request. After receiving the email message that is in an encoded form and that is returned according to the second request by the email server, the processor decodes the email message to obtain the portion in a decoded form. Then the processor forwards the portion of the email message to the client device.