Summary: Once a message goes into your outbox, Outlook tries to send it. While it's trying, there's little you can do. So the trick is to force it to stop trying.
How can I stop, delete or move an email that gets stuck in my outbox? The email I have here is 24.5 MB, which is apparently too big. The problem is that it's stopping all my other emails that I want to send from going out! I use Microsoft Outlook 2003.
It's been a while, but I've experienced this myself. Your ISP rejects the email because it's too big, only to have Outlook keep trying to send the mail because it doesn't realize that the error is fatal.
There are a couple of ways to deal with this issue. Surprisingly, the most low-tech solution is what I've found to be the most effective.
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Let's say your ISP has a cap of five megabytes on email message size. You start sending your 24.5 megabyte behemoth, and five megabytes in your ISP's mailer says "Nope, too big - FAIL".
Outlook doesn't realize that that's not going to get fixed and treats it like any transient error that might not happen if it tries again. So it tries again. And again. And again.
With no actual hope of success.
Meanwhile, once you realize that there's a problem, you can't do anything about it, because Outlook has the message while it's trying to send it. You can't delete or move an email that Outlook is in the process of sending.
There are two ways I've approached this problem in the past:
Get lucky - there's a small window of time between the failure and Outlook's next attempt to send it when it does not have the message locked. If you're lucky you can delete it during this time. But you must be really lucky.
Pull the plug - not the power, but your network. Literally
disconnect yourself from your network. Outlook will not be able to contact your
ISPs server at all and won't even begin to try sending your message. It might
take Outlook a few seconds to realize that it's off line, but once it does, you
can delete or move the message. After that, reconnect to your network and get
on with your lifeemail.
It's decidedly low-tech, and I can think of a few other ways to accomplish the same thing, but ultimately it's simple and fast and achieves the desired results.
Related:
Ask Leo! - Can I stop or 'un-send' an email I sent by mistake?
Ask Leo! - Where's the Sent Items folder in Outlook Express?
Ask Leo! - What can I do about Outlook's huge PST?
Article C2868 - December 11, 2006
Thanks, by unplugging my netowrk cable I was able to delete a file that Outlook kept locking on.
Posted by: Anthony at May 12, 2009 11:13 PMGenius! All other fixes are just fudges compared to this! So simple, works a charm - you are a good man!
Posted by: Wiliam Murray at May 19, 2009 12:51 PMI read the instruction and it seemed silly but I tried it and it fixed my problem first time, Thank you you are a wonderful and great find I plan to keep your details in my favourites.
Posted by: Theresa D at May 22, 2009 10:37 AMi have this problem only i deleted it form my outbox folder and its been 7 days its still trying to send the messages..i deleted the msgs as soon as they failed but its still doing this i called my isp..they cant help dell said its not a hardware isssue so they wont help they directed me to microsoft and i was told for a fee it can be fixed..wtf? any no cost low hassle way to fix this?
Posted by: kath at May 24, 2009 11:21 AMBrilliant, all it took was 10 seconds.
Posted by: Bill Dickson at June 5, 2009 7:54 AMThere is no reference to this problem in MS Help
Jennifer, you're brilliant. I was having a terrible time with a stupid message stuck in the Outbox and your fix worked perfectly. Thanks so much. Although I read through everything on the page, it was easier for me to figure out your solution than some of the others.
Posted by: kaenar langford at June 9, 2009 7:31 PMTHANKYOU SOOOO MUCH Leo! What a wonderful solution to such a stupid problem.... it worked with just 10 seconds to pull out the cord to my internet, straight back to Outlook, delete... and wholla!!! the problem solved....
Posted by: Fiona Grenfell at June 11, 2009 8:34 PMYou are an ABSOLUTE GENIUS...
thanks again, now I can get on with emailing!!
Thanks for the tip-- fixed my problem.
Posted by: Brian schmidt at June 16, 2009 12:50 PMTHough I found an even easier way... at the bottom right of outlook, right click and select "Work offline." that's like disconnecting the network cable. Delete the email from the outbox and then un-select "work offline" and you're back in business.
I closed my Outlook program. Then I reopened it & quickly deleted outbox email before it could start sending. Without this information, I never would have thought to do that. Thanks so much for this simple and effective solution!!
Posted by: Christian at June 24, 2009 2:23 PMThank you!!! Low-tech really did the trick (after much unsuccessful messing about and frustration trying to follow other 'official fixes!)
Posted by: Peter W at July 2, 2009 3:52 AM