mail stuck in outbox, general mail problems

Yes Yes YES!!! Thank you si458 🙂

The most beautiful hacks are always the simplest. OK, not really a 'hack' but mild abuse of a feature. Outbox dragged to Fav Bar and still there and viewable even after restart when empty. Several years of irritation fixed in seconds. Love it.

Thanks again, and have a great weekend (when we get there)

😀

ur welcome 🙂

i only found it by accident 😝 when i was trying things 🙂

and yes the simplies options are always the best ways 😝

I don't have a fix, but the following works if you need your messages stuck in out box, to be sent out.

1) Quit Mail

2) Restart Mail

With one exception, on the dozens of so times messages were stuck, they were sent right after the re-start. The one exception that did not work, was resolved after the repeating the restart a second time.

The fix will is Apple dependent. This gets your messages out.

p.s., my setting under Advanced, for Accounts is "don't keep copies of any messages". I use Mail for its clean and clear interface instead of a browser, and don't wish to have mail stored on my hard drive.

I had a similar issue - mail stuck in my outbox and no amount of restarting or deleting and adding the account would help. Here is what I found to be the problem. This looks like it was related to MobileMe (although I had mail blocked from sending in both MobileMe and my company Exchange server). At some point (Lion upgrade?) a change was made in mail so that MobileMe message would be sent from an SMPT server named "smpt.me.com" in the past my email wassent through a server labeled ".Mac Outgoing" with a server "smtp.mac.com". When an email would fail to send it would look like it was using smpt.me.com but in reality was still trying to use smtp.mac.com (and the "Use only this server" option made no difference). The crazy thing is that I could not see smtp.mac.com when I edited smpt servers. So I removed the MobileMe account and then I was able to see the .mac smt server entry. Deleted it then added the MobileMe account back and everything (including the blocked Exchange server message finally sent.

This type of probelm and lack of forum support from Apple is the reason I left MS products in the past. I went to Apple because it really did just work. Sorry to say but I am now having to spend way more time troubleshooting things after Apple product upgrades. Apple you need to really get back to basics.

Go Menu

Go To Folder

Type in ~/Library/mail/v2/ name of the email address /.OfflineCache

Clear this folder - solved

The text edit thing only works in 10.5 and 10.6

A call to AppleCare resolved this.

1) Delete your mail account.

2) Quit Mail

3) Restart Mail

4) Delete the outbox emails that are causing you problems

5) Quit Mail

6) Restart your Mac

7) Launch Mail and add your mail account(s) back

Things they tried that did not work, including much of what is mentioned here. They tried hard to avoid re-setting up the account, but it did not work. They had me search for missing library files to delete (as you could with Snow Leopard). Everything failed except the abovmentioned 7 steps.

Matt Blanco that is some bad advice. Deleting the account has other ramafications your not taking into consideration. I worked for apple up till a few weeks ago. What I put is the solution I figured out from my extensive training.

The problem is a stuck message in the outgoing mailbox that has an attachment that excedds the maximum file size. With imap the dafts are sent on the server and becuase of the rejection it stops the incoming and outgoing mail servers.

I just spoke to someone at Apple. This is a well-known issue involving Apple's own servers, and will be fixed in OS 10.7.2. In the meantime, the above solution (Matt Blanco's) is correct.

This response seems reasonable coming from Apple, but I can't even get the OS to open the Mail application. I get the following error message: "The index file is located in /System HD1 1000 GB/Users/bob_piper/Library/Mail/Envelope Index. If this file is on your computer, use the Get Info window in the Finder to change your permissions for this file to “Read & Write.” If this file is located on a network server, contact the server administrator. After your permissions are changed, open Mail again." Here's the glitch. When I try to follow the path to Mail I can't get beyond the user. In that path I do not find a file titled Library. No, I do not have the Maill application located on a network server. I am unable to access Mail until I appropriately respond to this message.

Any suggestions?

I really appreciate your quick response, but your answer was truncated and I am not sure which Menu you may have been referring to. "Hold down the Option key when the Co....menu"?

Again, thank you for helping.