How to delete or resend an email message stuck in Outlook's Outbox

The article explains how you can quickly remove or resend emails that are stuck in your Outbox. The solutions work on all systems and all versions of Outlook 2007 to Outlook 365.

An email message may become stuck in Outlook because of different reasons. You can find the detailed information about the causes and remedies in this article: Why an email is stuck in Outbox and how to fix this.

But no matter what the reason is, you need to get a stuck e-mail out of the Outbox somehow. In fact, there are several ways you can remove a hanging message and we are going to cover them from simplest to more complex.

How to resend a message stuck in the Outbox

A very simple two-step method that you should try first.

  1. Drag the stuck message from the Outlook Outbox to any other folder, e.g. to Drafts. Drag the stuck message from the Outbox to Drafts
  2. Switch to the Drafts folder, open the message and click the Send button. That's it! The message will be sent. Open the message in the Drafts folder and click the Send button

Tip. Before moving a stuck message to the Drafts folder, go to the Sent Items folder and check if the message was actually sent. If it was, delete the message from the Outbox since there is no need to perform the steps above.

How to remove a stuck email from the Outbox

A quick and easy way to delete a hanging message.

If the message has been hanging in your Outbox for a while and you don't actually want to sent it anymore, follow the below steps to delete it.

  1. Go to the Outbox and double click a stuck message to open it.
  2. Close the message.
  3. Right-click the message and choose Delete from the context menu. Delete an email message stuck in the Outbox.

Set Outlook to work offline and then remove a stuck message

A general solution that works in most cases.

If the previous method did not work for you, e.g. if you are continuously getting "Outlook has already begun transmitting this message", then you will have to invest a couple more minutes and go through the below steps.

Tip: Before you proceed, make sure you have given Outlook enough time to complete sending. For example, if you are a sending an email with heavy attachments, the process may take up to 10 - 15 minutes or even longer, depending on your Internet bandwidth. So, you may be thinking the message is stuck while Outlook is doing its best to transmit it.

  1. Set Outlook to Work Offline.
    • In Outlook 2010 and higher, go to the Send/Receive tab, Preferences group and click "Work Offline".
    • In Outlook 2007 and lower, click File > Work Offline.
    Click the Work Offline button to switch to the offline mode.
  2. Close Outlook.
  3. Open the Windows Task Manager. You can do this by right clicking the taskbar and choosing "Start Task Manager" from the pop-up menu or by pressing CTRL + SHIFT + ESC. Then switch to the Processes tab and verify that no outlook.exe process is there. If there is one, select it and click End Process. End a hanging Outlook process.
  4. Start Outlook again.
  5. Go to the Outbox and open a hanging message.
  6. Now you can either delete the stuck message or move it to the Drafts folder and remove the attachment if it is too big in size and this is the root of the problem. Then you can try to send the message again.
  7. Bring Outlook back on-line by clicking the "Work Offline" button.
  8. Click Send/Receive and see if the message is gone.

Create a new .pst file and then delete a stuck email

A more complex way, use it as the last resort if none of the above methods have worked.

  1. Create a new .pst file.
    • In Outlook 2010 - 365, you do this via File > Account Settings > Account Settings… > Data Files > Add…
    • In Outlook 2007 and older, go to File > New > Outlook Data File…
    Create a new .pst file.

    Name your new .pst file, e.g. "New PST" and click OK.

  2. Make the newly created .pst file the default one. In the "Accounting Settings" window, select it and click the "Set as Default" button. Set the newly created .pst file as the default one.
  3. Outlook will show the "Mail Delivery Location" dialog asking you if you really want to change the Default Outlook Data file. Click OK to confirm your choice. Confirm that you really want to change the Default Outlook Data file.
  4. Restart Outlook and you will see that your original .pst file shows up as an additional set of folders. Now you can easily remove the stuck email message from that secondary Outbox.
  5. Set the original .pst file as the default delivery location again (see step 2 above).
  6. Restart Outlook.

That's all! I hope at least one of the above techniques has worked for you. If you still have a message stuck in your Outbox, don't hesitate to leave a comment and we will try to make it send.

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155 comments

  1. Thank you, Thank you, THANK YOU! That stinking email has been hung up for 2 weeks! MSOutlook Help, was no help! You're brilliant!

  2. Hi Guys, While sending the email with attachment, its holding the outbox. already i had created the new pst file and reconfigured the outlook and re install the OS also . But its till not able to resolve , Kindly help me

    0x800CCC0F--SMTP server is not responding or "unable to connect to outgoing or SMTP mail server"

    Without attachment mail working fine

    No antivirus installed

    SMTP port No :-25

  3. I'm not sure if this is a phishing problem or what but I have a contact that is shown in my drafts folder. Whenever I click on the drafts folder to try and delete it, 3 occurrence's of the contact pops up and is saved to my contacts folder. The only way I can get away from this is to close outlook and restart.
    So anytime I touch the drafts folder it does this.
    I've tried to remove this through my webmail server but it does not see the same thing.
    Help is appreciated. Thanks.

  4. Ok, it finally worked.

  5. This message is stuck in the outlook.com account noted in this message.

  6. This technique does not work for any of the solutions outlined. Can you provide another method for disposing of a message?

  7. Thanks for the advice, I had a out-going email that would not go out and was stuck there. Could not delete it or move it. So I took Outlook off-line and that worked. Thanks so much for the answer.

  8. I had a message stuck in the outbox which had already started to send so I could not open it or drag it to another box. However I eventually got rid of it by closing Outlook (ticking the box 'exit without sending' on the way) and re-opening it. The message was still there but I was able simply to delete it by right-clicking and picking 'delete' from the drop-down menu.

    Thanks for this page - it gave me hope!

    • Same thing happened to me. It was a large attachment and Outlook already started to send it. I couldn't drag it, delete it, open it or resend it. I closed Outlook, used the task manager to close Outlook, tried exiting without sending, rebooted my machine, but nothing worked!
      Finally I clicked on the dropdown box on the task bar where it says "Send/Receive" with the little folders icon. There is a selection to "Cancel Send." I clicked on that, then went to the Outbox and finally was able to delete the message.

      Gone!!!

  9. Work Offline method works!!!

  10. Thank you very much for your assistance.
    worked perfectly.

  11. I have an iMac with the message stuck in Outlook but not in outbox. How do I delete in this scenario as it is slowing up my emails. I know that the reason is because i have large attachments but just need to delete.

    thanks

  12. Trying to help my 94 yr old father with his hanging email from long distance. He tried to send a video he had saved from his phone to his computer. I have given him all the instructions of the three methods all to no avail. He cannot get or receive emails. The third method was difficult in 2007 as I see is mentioned in another post. When you go to select the new .pst file it doesnt show in list to set as default. Any suggestions? None of the ways to delete has worked. Uninstall program and reinstall ?

  13. I have a 179MB email, whihc i sent bimistake via outlook. It says that its transmitting, and it has been there like that for last 2 weeks. I want to delete that email because it is slowing down my oother emails from being sent.

    Please help me with a solution.

  14. I have an email in my outbox and i cant send out.i think its stuck. i can't deleted it too. What can i do? Please help because it take a longer time to send out my other emails.

  15. I did not wait the allotted time before going back into online mode, and now the email is gone from the outbox, but clearly still processing on my server since my inbox purports to be over the size limit. Any advice??

    Thanks!

    • Hello Hannah,

      I am very sorry, we are unable to help you with this issue.

  16. Thank you! excellent solution

  17. THANK YOU SOOO MUCH FOR THIS INFORMATION- YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW LONG I TRIED TO DELETE A MESSAGE THAT WAS STUCK IN MY OUTBOX FOREVER. THANK YOU!!!

  18. Thank you.... at last the message has gone.

    Really appreciate this post

  19. if double click outbox canot open this item outlook has already began transmitting this message coming

  20. Thank you, thank you, thank you! Finally a solution that worked. I was going crazy with that message stuck for a couple weeks and the "work offline" trick worked for me!

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