Comments on: 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 2016, 2013, 2010 and lower. Continue reading →

Comments page 3. Total comments: 155

  1. Thanks a lot your procedure solved my problem

  2. Thank you so much for the tip using windows task manager for emails stuck in outbox, worked first time in under 5 minutes, been trying to sort this out for the last 3 months. Much appreciated

  3. Thank you worked just as you described in removing stuck mail from outbox!

  4. Svetlana

    Thank you, thank you, thank you!

    So many of the other 'solutions' offered for this problem involved reinstalling Outlook, deleting and resetting up accounts, removing the Outlook Connector and reconnecting, all of which always seemed to me to like using a sledgehammer to crack a nut. We users who report problems can of course provide unhelpful or misleading information to the helpers, but there seems to be a presumption amongst some of the helpers that the issue is a user issue not an Outlook issue, but a careful reading of the 'ticket' often indicates that it is not all emails that are failing to send, just one or two.

    One of the problems in reporting the issue of course is that Outlook does not always provide a useful error message. The most common messages I saw was 'The ... server cannot be reached/found' which was patently untrue as other emails which used the same server were being sent, so clearly the server could be found. Outlook was unwittingly 'lying'. Oh that the developers at MS could teach Outlook to distinguish between these cases.

    But you started with the simplest possible approach to the problem: treat the unsent item as a draft again. How wonderfully that worked. It was even simpler than an approach I had taken which was to start again, and copy the content of the stuck item into a new email. And your approach works..

    Kind regards

  5. How do I find the email that is stuck in the pst file. I can't even open the file. Thank you

  6. Dragging to, and sending from, Drafts worked for me.

    Over the years this problem has cropped up from time to time in various versions of Outlook. It only affects responses to meeting requests. The response appears in the Outbox, in italics, as usual. Instead of sending, the message changes to normal font style and then just sits there forever. I've never found a solution to this problem until I found your post, so thank you very much for saving my sanity! I didn't try the Work Offline trick. Just dragging the message to Drafts, opening it and hitting Send worked first time.

    I'm using Outlook 2016 under Windows 10, but I've run into this problem from time to time at least as far back as Outlook 2003.

  7. Hi all-I have just had a case where every time I tried to get rid of the stuck message, Windows Mail would go into NOT RESPONDING mode and my Mail programme would stop working so....in addition to all of the above-which I tried and still did not work as I had an huge message attachment ( my fault as I forgot to check size of photos I was sending)and after trying to get some help from MicroSoft folks ..who NOW only are trained to deal with Windows 7 and upwards....being of a very stubborn nature I would not admit defeat and after a bit of playing around I solved the "stuck message in my outbox with the huge attachment" so I will share the solution with all of you so as you don't lose anymore hair like I was...lol
    [This is especially valuable if you are still using Vista, as I am, and your Windows version is 2006]
    SELECT WORK OFFLINE first and foremost then:
    1)left click the TOOLS button in the toolbar and select ACCOUNTS
    2)select your DEFAULT MAIL and then go to the PROPERTIES button and click that
    3)Go to the ADVANCED tab and look down the choices until you see SENDING and just below there should be a box saying "BREAK APART MESSAGES LARGER THAN" which is unticked-TICK this box-this will then unmask the numeric little box on the same line-make a mental note of the number in there already and then increase the value of this to its max [which should be 16000KB]
    4)click the APPLY and then OK then close both little windows
    *doing these steps first will free up space and allow messages to be received as when this happened to me I could not SEND nor RECEIVE*
    NOW
    5)still being OFFLINE, CREATE a message and send it to yourself-this will automatically go straight into your OUTBOX
    6)this time when you select your OUTBOX your TEST message will be the one hi-lighted [and not the stuck one] and Windows will not throw a wobbly at you
    7)Go up to your EDIT button and click it then click on SELECT ALL and all the messages within your OUTBOX will be highlighted and Windows will now decide to behave.....[she said when she did it hoping like hell it would...lol]
    8)Now click on the DELETE button in the Edit box choices and Hey Presto ALL the messages in your OUTBOX will disappear and your email will start to work again as if nothing has happened-yes, you will have to redo your message you wanted to send but at least you will know your attachment needs to be adjusted size wise
    9)Go back and now repeat steps 1-4 and re-adjust the numeric VALUE in the "BREAK APART MESSAGES LARGER THAN back to its original number
    Close down all little windows and you should be up and running again

    I hope this works for you all out there who are tearing out your hair with frustration.take care Maureen

  8. Sometimes we get an error when we try to delete a File or a folder for no reason , but of course there is a reason.We have many damage file or blocked files.Do not worry if we want to remove the error files or too long path files from our system,here I suggest a smooth way.So use “Long path tool” software and keep yourself.

  9. Thank you for your advise. The third section has done the job. I went to the file manager and deleted the outlook process which was running. Then i was able to delete the hanging e mail (80 MB Video). Excellent advise and a job well done.

    Thanks again.

  10. Hi

    I'm running Outlook 2013. I have one email with a small pdf attachment that will not send. It does not appear in ANY folder including Drafts and Outbox and has not been received by the addressee but Outlook is constantly trying to send the message. Outlook will not close when shutting down my laptop and I have to force closure every time.

    How can I delete the email?

    Thanks...Richard

  11. Hi Svetlana,

    I got my mail stuck in outbox too, but the difference, they're stuck in "outbox" folder in "Server Data". I can't see them with my 2007 outlook (MAPI). The synchronization give nothing in my outbox, but when i see it from the folder size of "Server data", it shows there are some mails stuck in my outbox in "Server data". Can you tell me how to delet them?

  12. Thanks a ton!!
    I was able to delete the stuck message by end process

  13. Thank you! Using "end process" allowed me to delete the stuck email!

  14. Hi Svetlana

    I am stuck with an E mail the last few weeks and it is in outbox and stopping other messages to be send quickly.I am trying to delete it but no response
    please help me other wise

  15. Thank you! I got several answers when I googled to find out how to delete a message stuck in my outbox. Yours is the only one that worked. I managed to move it to my Inbox and delete it from there because I had already sent it from another site and didn't want it sent twice.

  16. Thank you! This worked like a charm and saved me from email hell! Thanks again!

  17. when i am sending up to 5 mb mail its stuck in outbox , but receiver received many times , plz solve this issue bcoz i am facing this problem.
    I am using outlook 2016.

  18. Long path error!
    "Long path tool" is very helpful for this problem. You can solve this problem like copy, delete, long path files by using this tool.
    I used to have similar problems too, but after using "long path tool" everything was solved.

  19. Hi
    there is one email number shows stuck in outbox however there is no email inside, its just the number (1) showing tried the steps of workline but no fix.
    Please help.

  20. Excellent.
    Thanks for your kind help.

  21. Tried all listed steps and still no luck. I am seeing my Outbox highlighted and showing that there is 1 outbound message yet when I open the folder nothing is there. Is driving me nuts seeing this and can't seem to get it to clear off. Any suggestions?

  22. Thank u Svetlana Cheusheva

  23. Hallelujah - my Outbox has been purged thanks to your excellent advice!
    What a wonderful feeling.
    Immensely grateful to you.

  24. Thank you so much.very helpful

  25. The work off line method worked perfectly. THANKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  26. hello i am vishnu i am faceing prob. outlook pls. solve this prob. my mail. not send gone to outbox and not deleate outbox mail pls. find error.

    cannot open this item . outlook has already begun transmitting this message

  27. I have an odder problem.
    I created a simple email in outlook 2007. I copied a number of email addresses (maybe 50) from an earlier email onto the 'bcc' line. I tried to send it, but Outlook just churns for a long time and will not send. I tried to close Outlook and it gives the message "do you want to exit without sending?"
    Well, it won't finish the task, so I closed it.

    The email addresses look like this, which is what I feel the problem might be: 'info@charliessafari.com' (all underlined)

    I have had a similar situation happen in the past and found that rogue file in my Outbox.
    However, this one is NO WHERE to be found. It's not in the Outbox, nor in the Sent folder. I cannot find it anywhere to edit/delete it.
    Please help, as this is hindering my ability to send other emails. Thx, in advance.
    Thane

  28. Thank you so much. This work perfectly.

  29. Thank you. Very helpful!

  30. Hi Svetlana Cheusheva,

    Hope you are doing good!!

    I hava an issue with my outlook 2010, when someone recall the email, my outlook getting stuck for a long time.
    Please help me on the same.

    Thanks

  31. Thanks!!! Nothing worked for me unless i made another .pst file, thanks to you

  32. You are a GENIUS!!! This has been sitting inmy outbox for 2 days slowing eveything down. Thanks for the tip! It worked perfectly.

  33. Great..@@
    It works
    Thanks..!!

  34. Worked beautifully, thanks so much. Ron

  35. Very useful information!!

    Thanks!

  36. I just unplug the ethernet cable , then delete the message from outbox. Works like a charm and hope it works for you.

  37. Thank you !! Your solution worked and I finally was able to remove the email in my Outbox that caused all my other emails to be delayed in going out !!..:)

  38. Like many other people on here, I followed your suggestion and it worked. Thanks!

  39. Thanks it helps

  40. Thank you, this worked like a charm!

  41. there's a message in below right corner of outlook page as follow:
    receiving message 13.4 MB
    and mail not able to open (as it's more than email limit allowed 8 MB,
    please advice how i can open that mail, or remove it?

  42. Hello Dear,

    I had configure my personal mail id with outlook and send 966 mail at once some mail which was sent was showing in sent folder and other was showing into outboox and now i want to delete all just because of i want to configure my official mail into outlook but still i am unable to clear outlook outbox mails.
    Please help....

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

  44. 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

  45. 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.

  46. Ok, it finally worked.

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

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

  49. 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.

  50. 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!

    1. 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!!!

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