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Level 1

6 points

Mail is getting stuck in my outbox?

I've got a 13" Macbook Air that's about 12 months old. It's got a 1.7ghz I7 processor and 8GB of RAM. About 2-3 weeks ago I started having intermittent issues sending email where my mail just sits in the outbox and doesn't send. I'm using the Apple Mail client and have an iCloud email account, although I'm still using the @me.com domain for the email.

I've checked the Connection Doctor. I get green lights all the way through and it says "Connection to server and login succeeded", but my emails still aren't sending. I can't be certain of this but it seems more likely to happen when I send something with an attachment. The emails would be under 10mb still.

If I try quitting mail from Mail>Quit Mail the email application won't close. if I try to quit by right clicking on it in the menu bar it won't close either. I have to use "Force Quit" off the apple menu to shut the application down.

As an example, looking at the emails stuck in there at the moment there's three. The first one I tried to send at 9:21am. It's now 10:38am and it still hasn't gone. I've checked my internet connection and I'm getting 4mb/sec download and 1.7mb/second upload. So not crazy fast but more than enough to send three emails.

I've tried removing the account and adding it again. This took ages to download all my emails locally again but didn't fix any of the problems.

Any suggestions?

MacBook Air, OS X Mavericks (10.9.3)

Posted on Jun 9, 2014 7:57 PM

Best reply

Linc Davis

Level 10

209,547 points

Posted on Jun 9, 2014 9:53 PM

Please follow these directions to delete the Mail "sandbox" folders. In OS X 10.9 there are two sandboxes, while in 10.8 there is only one. If you're running a version older than 10.8, this comment isn't applicable.

Back up all data.

Triple-click anywhere in the line below on this page to select it:

~/Library/Containers/com.apple.mail

Right-click or control-click the highlighted line and select

Services ▹ Reveal

from the contextual menu.* A Finder window should open with a folder named "com.apple.mail" selected. If it does, move the selected folder—not just its contents—to the Desktop. Leave the Finder window open for now.

Log out and log back in. Launch Mail and test. If the problem is resolved, you may have to recreate some of your Mail settings. You can then delete the folder you moved and close the Finder window.

This action will delete any custom Mail stationery that you have created. If you want to preserve it, ask for instructions.

If you still have the problem, quit Mail again and put the folder back where it was, overwriting the one that may have been created in its place. Repeat with this line:

~/Library/Containers/com.apple.MailServiceAgent

Caution: If you change any of the contents of the sandbox, but leave the folder itself in place, Mail may crash or not launch at all. Deleting the whole sandbox will cause it to be rebuilt automatically.

*If you don't see the contextual menu item, copy the selected text to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C. In the Finder, select

Go ▹ Go to Folder...

from the menu bar and paste into the box that opens by pressing command-V. You won't see what you pasted because a line break is included. Press return.

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36 replies

JBinKC

Level 1

9 points

Jan 19, 2015 5:10 PM in response to Linc Davis

This enabled me to get my wife's Apple Mail back in operation after several days of mail stacking up in her outbox. Thank you!

Comments:

1. I wasn't clear what the "sandbox" referred to, but as I far as I can tell this didn't hamper my success in getting her outbound mail flowing again.

2. I had to move both files .mail and .mailserviceagent to succeed.

3. We're running OSX 10.1.1 Yosemite.

4. The only visible impact we've seen so far was thel oss of her customized Mail toolbar, but that was no big deal. She doesn't use custom stationery.

Thanks again,

ADG UK

Level 1

4 points

Feb 1, 2015 7:52 AM in response to Linc Davis

Everyone else seems to have solved this - but not me on my nice new 5k iMac - I have messages stuck in my outbox

I am on: Yosemite 10.10.2, using Mail 8.2 with an IMAP account from Virginmedia

So far I have:

1) Checked the smtp server settings - port '465' with SSL 'ticked' and authenticated with 'Password'

2) Checked I the advanced settings on the account: port 993 with SSL 'ticked'

3) Checked the Connection Doctor is all green for smtp and virginmedia

4) Checked mails send from my iPhone (and they do)

5) moved both files - apple.com.mail and apple.com.mailserviceagent to the desktop

6) rebooted the mac and rebooted the wifi in the house

I did have one mail get sent but I have 2 small mails still stuck.

Any advice welcome please - thanks in advance

JBinKC

Level 1

9 points

Feb 1, 2015 1:50 PM in response to JBinKC

Turns out this was only a temporary fix (the steps outlined above).

Next, I upgraded to the new OSX 10.2.2. Sadly, this did not fix the problem either.

Next, I deleted the iCloud Account on the computer.

Rebooted.

Then reinstalled an iCloud account, and waited a while for the mailboxes on the computer to be repopulated from the Cloud.

And - Good News - the Mail has been working properly since (36 hours).

Good luck!

ADG UK

Level 1

4 points

Feb 4, 2015 2:50 PM in response to JBinKC

Thank you!

I had two mail accounts - one iCloud and one from Virginmedia. Your approach of deleting and reinstalling didn't work first time, but I tried again - this time with iCloud first and I didn't select to share the 'keychain' access iniCloud as I thought this might be polluting the set up some way from the other mac in the house which isn't upgraded to Yosemite yet.

The good news it worked! I don't know why and I haven't turned 'keychain' access back on yet - but it is great to have email back.

Many many thanks.

Feb 12, 2015 6:55 AM in response to Linc Davis

Thank you Linc for posting this because this is the only thing that worked for me. I know what caused the problem and I don't really know exactly what I did to solve it but I followed your instructions and the second option worked for me.

Thank you again!!!!

🙂 🙂 🙂

Lounger

Level 1

4 points

Mar 5, 2015 3:27 AM in response to Linc Davis

Hi Linc,

the problem did return, I am hoping that your second solution, works.

Thanks,

catnk9

Level 1

0 points

Mar 16, 2015 5:40 PM in response to Linc Davis

Thank you. I had to do the second fix of moving the folder, but it's worked so far! Here's crossing my fingers....

Apr 1, 2015 10:32 PM in response to Linc Davis

This advice seems to have fixed my problem.

However after deleting ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.mail, my preferences were reset (as expected), but none of the changes that I made would be retained after Mail had been shut down restarted.

The way to fix that problem was to repair permissions on my system disk, using Disk Utility after booting from the Recovery HD. Using Disk Utility in the normal way didn't fix the problem.

Surge74

Level 1

36 points

Apr 28, 2015 6:52 AM in response to exyfeplin

Moved both files and it did not work.

Have been having a lot of issues with Mail on Yosemite. It's really a POS.

Had NO issues with 10.7's Mail, and now I have spent countless hours trying to sort through Mail crashing on launch (which is still does), and now emails sitting in the Outbox. What a joke this is.

May 4, 2015 7:13 AM in response to Linc Davis

Thanks very much! Same problems, resolved! It works!

May 5, 2015 3:07 PM in response to Linc Davis

This has been a problem ever since I upgraded to Yosemite last fall. So far the first part of the solution seems to be working for me. Thanks!

Chez70

Level 1

0 points

Jun 21, 2015 11:21 AM in response to Linc Davis

Thank you, Link. I had my email stuck in outbox for TWO days and finally found your solution and it worked on my OS X Yosemite 10.10.3!! I am very happy to have MAIL back in business- Kudos. Chez 70

grbenson

Level 1

0 points

Aug 17, 2015 7:15 PM in response to Linc Davis

Thank you!!!! It worked great.

Aug 27, 2015 3:51 PM in response to Linc Davis

I've done all of these steps and still can't get mail to send out of the outbox :/

BDSalop

Level 1

0 points

Nov 1, 2015 3:53 AM in response to Hydro99

This worked to get my mail "unstuck," BUT..

This action deleted all my mail folders - I certainly didn’t expect this to be a part of “your mail preferences will be deleted.”

Now all of the saved mail that I had sorted into folders is randomly in “all mail” - NOT good.

Would have been very helpful to point me EXPLICITLY at what "preferences" might be at risk in the original post! (We are not all as savvy..)

I thought this would be benign things like signatures, but all the organization in my mail is now GONE.

If there is some way to recover my file folder structure from the old "sandbox" file, it would be GREATLY appreciated.

I have not yet deleted the moved "sandbox" from my desktop.

Thanks for any suggestions.

Mail is getting stuck in my outbox?