How to cancel outgoing Apple Mail messages hanging in send preparation mode.

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Level 1

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How to cancel outgoing Apple Mail messages hanging in send preparation mode.

If you have multiple SMTPs through which you send mail, you may at times find that the message you send, or reply to as a send, can take forever while you wait for Mail to figure out that the outgoing smtp server setting its trying to use is the wrong one. You have two options. You can patiently wait and eventually, (it can take minutes), Apple Mail will pop up a dialogue listing the other send mail smtps you ought try. OR you might want to cancel the preparation instantly.

To cancel a mail message preparing to send try having the Mail Activity window open. The hanging mail will show on a list with a RED STOP SIGN button next to it. Click that button, and the mail preparation process is instantly cancelled and placed in a temporary OUTGOING Mail box. In that Outgoing Mail Box, you can edit the send setting or the email in any normal way.

😉

2x MBPro15, Mac OS X (10.6.7), Macbook 2009 model, iPhone3g - australia telstra via Belkin-Time

Posted on May 1, 2011 5:15 AM

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Answer 1

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Glenn Leblanc

Level 6

12,515 points

May 1, 2011 6:42 AM in response to truk1

I hadn't figured a way to do that. But, it shouldn't take hardly any time for mail to figure what server to send with or to give a failure when it doesn't send.

For each account used, select the outgoing server you want for that account and check the box to only use that server for that account.

Go into the settings for outgoing server and choose custom port and place the port that you use for that account. This will stop it from looking for other ports that won't work.

Go into keychain and find the passwords for the outgoing servers. You may have multiple passwords for the accounts. Delete all of them and create new ones when you send mail.

This should stop the delays and give you an almost immediate message when it fails to send and the list to choose an alternate server will come up within seconds instead of minutes.

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