Unsent message?

My iPhone has an unsent email message that I can't get rid of. When I first got the phone, I set up an email account and mistyped the SMTP address. Then I tried to send a test message, which failed, then later I either fixed the typo or I may have deleted that entire account and created a new one. I'm guessing that the mail app is probably still trying to send the test message to the bad address.

I can't find an Outbox folder, and can't figure out how else to get rid of the unsent message (it always says "1 unsent message" at the bottom of the mail window).

I also get several "Connection to the server failed" messages whenever I use mail. I don't know if these are related to the unsent message or something else, but they are very consistent, and annoying.

Any idea what I can do here?

Mac Mini, Mac OS X (10.5.4), Lexicon Lambda

Posted on Jan 10, 2009 2:26 PM

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Posted on Oct 24, 2009 1:01 PM

Here is how to do it:

switch on airplane mode in the settings. go to mail and write an email from the account, where the "unsent mail" is stuck. compose a new mail and send it. since you are in airplane mode it is unable to send it and will put it in the "outbox" and make the "outbox" visible. Now there are two mails, the newly composed one and the old stuck one. If all you want ins delete them, just do the swipe-delete (the edit, delete buttons wont work in airplane mode).
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Oct 24, 2009 1:01 PM in response to flarosa

Here is how to do it:

switch on airplane mode in the settings. go to mail and write an email from the account, where the "unsent mail" is stuck. compose a new mail and send it. since you are in airplane mode it is unable to send it and will put it in the "outbox" and make the "outbox" visible. Now there are two mails, the newly composed one and the old stuck one. If all you want ins delete them, just do the swipe-delete (the edit, delete buttons wont work in airplane mode).
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Feb 4, 2009 2:30 PM in response to flarosa

One thing that might help.

Go to Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars > Your email Account > SMTP.
Scroll down the list of secondary servers and see if the misspelled server shows up.
If so, turn the server on then see if your mail has an outbox.

If the server does not show or the outbox does not show, you might need to delete the account and set it back up again.
After you delete the account, Go to Settings > General > Reset and reset all settings.
After the iphone restarts, then set the account back up

Hope this helps.
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Feb 17, 2009 9:19 AM in response to Jennifer Fields

I kinda Figured this issue out for myself. 🙂 I checked and seen that I had to go into the Defalt Email address on my Phone and look in the Outbox in that address to delete the Unsent Emails. I kept looking for the two unsent in the email addy that I always use and I could not find it. When I checked, I had my other email address as the defalt. So I opened that account and low and behold"
There it was, the outbox that had the two unsent messages. I Deleted them and no more trying to send, then getting the unsent message ever again. Hope this helps some people..... Seams I would have thought of this sooner DouHh!!
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Jun 21, 2009 1:28 AM in response to Damon M.

Hi

I tried sending an e-mail from my Iphone after installing 3.0. The outgoing smtp didn't work, so I deleted the account and started over. Then I could send e-mail again, but there is still the unsent message displaying. I don't remember the non-working smtp.
Any cure?
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Jun 21, 2009 8:20 AM in response to flarosa

I'm having the same problem -- seems to be the phone can't send image attachments. Any way to get rid of the several unsent messages it keeps telling me about? I can't seem to get the Outbox to show, even after trying everything mentioned in this thread (and other threads as well).
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Jun 21, 2009 9:21 AM in response to seanokey

Hi

Found a fix to my problem, but you must remember which mail/message that didn't go through.
Use the new tool Spotlight to search for the mail (I used the name for the receiver of the mail). Press the mail (check that it is the one) and delete it. My mail program then hung, so I had to turn Mail off and back on again (Settings - Mail, Contacts, Calendars - My .Mac Account).
Any luck?
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Jul 25, 2009 9:38 AM in response to dag h

Thanks for solving my problem. Spotlight worked the best and easily found the two emails I had appearing as unsent. Once I deleted both, my mail program hung as well. Instead of turning Mail off in Setting, while I was still in Mail (hung) I did a shutdown of the app by holding the Power and Home button together until the Slide to Power Off button appeared, then releasing both buttons and then holding the Home button again for about 5 seconds until Mail closed. Then I reopened mail and everything worked great - no unsent messages.
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Aug 9, 2009 6:57 PM in response to flarosa

Having just come across this exact problem, I found that the unsent message will be found by Search - just search for the email address or something in the message. You can then browse to the message and delete it from here.

I saw the message sitting in the Outbox of a mailbox "Local Mailboxes". When you go back to the list of mail accounts, the Local Mailboxes account doesn't appear which isn't helpful.

Hope this helps
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Jan 6, 2010 1:34 PM in response to docthegreat

Did you follow the instructions included with the previous post to make the Outbox mailbox appear?

The Outbox mailbox appears only when a message is being sent, and should appear and remain available when there is a message that cannot be sent for whatever reason.
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Mar 17, 2010 5:56 PM in response to kurosawa99

Followed your instructions but with one difference, JUST close down as before, go to settings and turn on 'airplane mode', then close that. Open emial and the emails will try to send and it will tell you what account. Go to the account, and the outbox will be there. Then delete.

Thanks very mush, your solution was excellent!!
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