Messages get sent, but remains in outbox

When user is sending her emails out using Outlook 2010, the messages do get send but remains in her
outbox. Her mailbox was cleared out, including her sent items. But for some reason, the sent items do not
leave the outbox.

Any ideas/suggestions? We're using Exchange Server 2010.

Thanks.

2 Replies

Thai Pepper

Elgin8949 Feb 8, 2013 at 7:05 AM

I've only seen this on a POP3 connection, but the user's mailbox was full or had a inbound mail item with an
attachment that exceeded the allowed size.

• Spice
• Reply
•
•

Serrano

CLINDELL Feb 8, 2013 at 7:36 AM

Outlook is likely offline

• Spice
• Reply
•
•

Chipotle

OP

Spintamer Feb 8, 2013 at 8:06 AM

I don't think Outlook is offline because she can send and receive messages with no problems.

I checked the size of her mail quota in Exchange Server. Her mailbox was full at first, but even after
cleaning out her mailbox, the messages will not go away from her outbox.
This is very strange to say the least.

• Spice
• Reply
•
•

Serrano

CLINDELL Feb 8, 2013 at 8:20 AM

I've only see this happen 2 ways myself, Outlook is off line or 1 message is corrupt preventing the others
from sending. I pulled the cable to stop the network on the local box then moved the messages in the outbox
and resent them 1 at a time until the offending message was found then it was deleted and the user recreated
it and it was sent.

• Spice
• Reply
•
•

Serrano

CLINDELL Feb 8, 2013 at 8:21 AM

Also check for a corrupted OST if you use them, we don't, they caused us to many headaches!

• Spice
• Reply
•
•

Thai Pepper

Elgin8949 Feb 8, 2013 at 8:27 AM

Andrew3722 wrote:

I don't think Outlook is offline because she can send and receive messages with no problems.

I checked the size of her mail quota in Exchange Server. Her mailbox was full at first, but even after
cleaning out her mailbox, the messages will not go away from her outbox.
This is very strange to say the least.

After cleaing the mailbox, try removing the item(s) from the outbox. This should reset outlook to normal.

• Spice
• Reply
•
•

Poblano

Harry372 Feb 8, 2013 at 9:19 AM

Seen this a few times: open the message again and hit send a second time then F9 or "Send & Receive" and
it will leave the outbox.

• Spice
• Reply
•
•

Chipotle

OP

Spintamer Feb 9, 2013 at 1:18 AM

Thank you all for your post.

@Harry372, I have not tried pressing F9 or "Send and Receive". When the user is available, I will try your
suggestion.

• Spice
• Reply
•
•

Pimiento

jeremyadamdavis Aug 2, 2013 at 1:03 AM

1st Post

I used the Outlook Inbox Repair tool, and it solved the problem for me.
 • Spice
• Reply
•
•

Pimiento

trudie.coetzee.14 Jan 17, 2014 at 9:13 PM

1st Post

This is the case with me as well. I uploaded office 2013 recently and non of my sent items move out of
outbox. I never know which once have been sent...at this stage Im giving it 24 hours and then I delete it, so
the change of a corrupt file is not an option...please help???

• Spice
• Reply
•
•

Pimiento

tazrules66 Jan 22, 2014 at 11:44 AM

1st Post

Same this is happening my email as well....I send emails, they go through, but instead of the message going
to my sent folder, they are accumulating in my outbox. I have checked just about everything and done just
about everything....any ideas?

• Spice
• Reply
•
•

Pimiento
Aussie_Andy Feb 7, 2014 at 4:31 AM

1st Post

I am having the same problem. I am using Windows 8.1 with outlook 2013. I use MAPI and have been
without problem. However, as of yesterday my emails were all staying in the outbox, but were actually
sending.

I did notice the only way to confirm the email actually sent was the 'size' would change from 25k for
example to 0k once sent. This is still a problem as I have to send quotes and other important emails to clients
and I need to know they have actually sent.

I have tried opening the email in the outbox and resending the email but it doesn't leave the outbox. I have
also tried deleting the account and recreating the account. It didn't fix the problem.

I also use outlook 2013 with a personal Gmail account and my work email account sharing outlook. Gmail
works fine.

The other problem I am having with outlook 2013 is my Gmail sent items get saved to 'sent' folder, but my
work email account that uses MAPI as well, won't save my sent emails to the 'sent' folder. If anybody can
help I would be very grateful.

• Spice
• Reply
•
•

Pimiento

valeedmulla Feb 23, 2014 at 7:11 PM

1st Post

Same Problem here -

environment details :

Dell PC

Kaspersky Antivirus 2014

OS : Windows 8.1

Outlook 2013

All updates are done

Emails are sent but still a copy remains in the outbox

Please advice a solution ASAP.

 • Spice
• Reply
•
•

Pimiento

Chris1581 Jun 9, 2014 at 9:08 PM

1st Post

We've had almost a hundred reports of this. I'm sure it's a happening much more than we know about but
some people just haven't noticed. People send email, the email goes through, but still shows in Outbox,
never makes it to sent items. Doesn't happen to all email, seems intermittent. Happens to email going to
internal users and external addresses. Cannot find any correlation between time of day, usage of computer,
user and problem. We've replaced users' computers with brand new freshly imaged systems and see the
same results. Opened a case with MS and after spending hours and hours on the phone and troubleshooting,
got absolutely nowhere. Ridiculous. Any additional suggestions? Office 2013, Windows 7.

Thanks

• Spice
• Reply
•
•

Pimiento

gregplummer Jul 2, 2014 at 10:01 AM

1st Post

I have recently begun to have the same problem. The messages are being sent (I have contacted the
recipients) but they accumulate in my outbox. Very annoying.

imap account

win 8.2

outlook 2013

• Spice
• Reply
•
•
Pimiento

andrewperales Aug 14, 2014 at 8:56 PM

1st Post

This seems to be an issue with Outlook 2013. I'm experiencing the same issue with all users on a Terminal
Server.

Server 2008 R2 x64

Outlook 2013
Exchange 2010
MAPI

The difference here though is this, if the users send from another PC the emails sit in the outbox on the
Terminal Server even though they sent. If they send them from the Terminal Server it works fine.

• Spice
• Reply
•
•

Pimiento

davehutton Aug 16, 2014 at 5:00 PM

1st Post

I have the same problem which has only occurred today, after years of trouble free use of POP3 gmail
accounts in various Outlook versions (now 2013). I logged onto my gmail account online and see the
messages have been sent. It's weird. Seems to happen whichever account I try and send form. This is the first
time I've used Outlook since a batch of updates from Microsoft - now, there's a coincidence?????

• Spice
• Reply
•
•

Pimiento

paulasharkey Sep 8, 2014 at 6:51 PM

1st Post

I have the same problem since upgrade to Office 365. Mail seems to be sent, have checked some, but how
can I be 100% sure, but remains in the outbox! Is there any solution to this yet?
 • Spice
• Reply
•
•

Pimiento

Aussie_Andy Sep 8, 2014 at 8:51 PM

Only way I confirm is the file size. If its 0kb its sent.

• Spice
• Reply
•
•

Pimiento

paulasharkey Sep 8, 2014 at 9:04 PM

Thanks Andy. I did notice that. Seems on the upgrade I went from POP to IMAP and this has something to
do with it. Having spoken to Microsoft the guy implied that this Outbox was the equivalent of my Sent
folder when was POP???

• Spice
• Reply
•
•

Pimiento

paulasharkey Sep 8, 2014 at 9:05 PM

Just to clarify, I did not choose to go to IMPA - this just happens automatically.

• Spice
• Reply
•
•

Pimiento
paulgriffin Sep 23, 2014 at 9:13 PM

1st Post

I am also seeing this problem for several of our users and have noticed that it is always (almost) when they
send e-mail from another mailbox they have been given SendAs permissions to. I.e. Mail they send from
themselves goes into Sent Items but mail from other mailbox (user has SendAs permissions) sends but stays
in Outbox.

This is on Exchange 2010 with Outlook 2007.

Sorry not offering a solution here but just adding some more info to see if this situation applies to anyone
else...

• Spice
• Reply
•
•

Pimiento

aliissa Oct 26, 2014 at 3:13 AM

1st Post

Same issue, Outlook 2013, Win 7 Pro, Asus with i7

the only thing I was able to do recently was move the emails to my "sent" folder and it seems like it worked.

Still, sending new emails has the same issue.

• Spice
• Reply
•
•

Pimiento

Mike_Rafon Oct 31, 2014 at 1:16 AM

1st Post

Same issue. Here's what I've tried:

Ran scanpst.exe on the OST. It found errors but could not repair them.

Deleted everything from rname%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Outlook

Recreated cached file. Problem persists.

Next step I think is to recreate the profile unless I hear something better.

Pimiento

cw3 Nov 15, 2014 at 8:11 AM

1st Post

Did you ever find a resolution? Same exact thing happening to a bunch of users in my organization. The send mail, no
error, it is received by the recipient, they respond so we know, but the message stays in the senders outbox. We suspect a
brief disconnect from the server but nothing has shown that. It's almost like the cloud doesn't see it as sent

• Spice
• Reply
•
•

Pimiento

brianhathaway Nov 21, 2014 at 8:20 AM

M

1st Post

This started happening today on my home PC.

Windows 7, Office 2013, POP3 to Gmail.

Messages are sent and the addressees receive them. However, the messages remain in my Outbox and are not
moved to the Sent Items folder. The message header information displayed in the Outbox changes from
bold italic to normal text when the message is sent.

I reduced the size of my PST file to no avail.

Running ScanPst fixed it and it is working fine now.

• Spice
• Reply
•
•
Pimiento

Mike_Rafon Nov 24, 2014 at 5:49 AM

I never got around to recreating the Outlook profile and the error reoccurred. I think recreating the Outlook
profile would have solved it. I ended up creating a new Outlook profile on a different machine and that
alone fixed the issue.

• Spice
• Reply
•
•

Sonora

Will Tran Jan 17, 2015 at 3:09 AM

1st Post

We've had a few of these and generally it's because of the OST/PST file hit
hitting
ting it's file size limit.

To fix it, you have to edit the registry. Below expands the OST/PST file to 100GB.

Text

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft
Microsoft\Office\14.0\Outlook\PST]
"MaxLargeFileSize"=dword:00019000
"WarnLargeFileSize"=dword:00017c00

• Spice
• Reply
•
•

Pimiento
jg82 Feb 5, 2015 at 7:29 AM

1st Post

Hello all,

Do any of you have Kaspersky AV installed?

If so, try to disable it (pause protection) and it send/receive in Outlook. If the email leaves the outbox, you
have your culprit...

• Spice
• Reply
•
•

Pimiento

garethstephens Apr 20, 2015 at 7:43 PM

1st Post

I have had this problem severall times and I cant remember how I fixed it or find the page that explained. I
send emails and it doesnt move to the sent folder. The recipie
recipient
nt gets the email several times before I
manually move it to drafts. I had to close outlook and find one file and delete it. When outlook is opened it
recreates the file but I cannot remember which it is. I think its the inbox even though the problem is with
wi the
outbox and sent.

• Spice
• Reply
•
•

Pimiento

joeyshah May 1, 2015 at 2:59 PM

Sorted https://support.microsoft.com/en
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/272227

• Spice
• Reply
•
 •

Sonora

tshegovenice May 8, 2015 at 5:17 PM

1st Post

I'm experiencing the same problem, user's emails get sent but remains in the outbox

• Spice
• Reply
•
•

Pimiento

jennifersteyn May 28, 2015 at 1:52 PM

1st Post

I have the same issue!!! Please can one of the many software geniuses out there help. :)

• Spice
• Reply
•
•

Pimiento

jennifersteyn May 28, 2015 at 1:56 PM

Where do I find the scanfixit command, as per Bryan Hathaway? Thanks

• Spice
• Reply
•
•
Pimiento

mh73 Jul 20, 2015 at 9:33 PM

1st Post

I just had the same problem on a Win8.1/Office 2013 machine. IMAP server configuration. I ran ScanPST on
the .ost file. Then back in Outlook I moved all the Outbox mails into a temp folder, tested and deleted the
temp folder after everything seemed okay. But then I noticed that the Sent Items is empty, I looked into the
Deleted Items>Temp folder and noticed that the former 0Kb mails are now containing data. I moved the
deleted emails back into the Sent Items and all seems okay. Outbox cleans out when I Send/Receive.

It seems that there is some weird link between Outbox and Sent Items that ScanPST fixed.

I post this as something to try in case somebody has a similar problem.

• Spice
• Reply
•
•

Pimiento

neilschwarzer Aug 27, 2015 at 6:45 AM

1st Post

Guys, Try running outlook in safe mode and see if the issue continues.

You can then move the emails stuck in the outbox into the sent folder...

If it works in safe mode, try disabling addins to see which one might be causing the problem in normal mode.

My client doesn't use any of the features provided by the default ad

ad-dins
dins so we disabled them all.

The problem no longer occurs. (I did open outlook twice in safe mode to be sure)

• Spice
• Reply
•
•
Pimiento

maartenkathmann Nov 23, 2015 at 8:50 P

PM

1st Post

I have the same problem but when I turn the cache modus on the problem is fixed.

This only happens when I send a mail from a shared mailbox. So I think it is trying to put the mail in the send
items of the shared mailbox but is unable to do so.

The solution for this is to make a register key

key.. And this will only work with the cache modus on. So I think
you guys need to check your cache option and try again.

• Spice
• Reply
•
•

Pimiento

import tickets Mar 28, 2016 at 7:09 AM

1st Post

I am not seeking an answer, only to confirm what we have seen on a number of occasions.

We have a hosted Exchange 2013 servers (Mailbox and CAS) setup in a hosting center. We have Remote
Desktop Users in their 100s from different companies access the system, mostly running Win2012 and
Outlook 2010 (up-to-date
date patching). All users are setup in non cache mode as this is a requirement on RDS
with multiple RDS servers. The con
connection between RDS is exchange is 10GB.

Occasionally (very occasionally) we see an email message "seeming stuck" the Outlook Outbox Folder,
which has not moved into sent folder but has been sent to all recipients, both within the same exchange server
and outside the exchange servers mailboxes. We know they have left the server as we have contacted the
recipients all acknowledge receipt and we have reviewed logs from the outbound (non exchange) mail
filter. We have no way of reproducing the problem.

There was an idea of using ScanPST because the OST might be corrupt. Our most recent example was a
brand new user, setup 3 hours prior using a powershell script that we use on all our users, so it seems unlikely
that the OST was corrupt. We note that others hhave
ave seen what I think is a higher occurrence of the situation
using Outlook 2013.
We are forever hopeful that Microsoft might know of the issue in more detail than we can see and that the
problem will eventually be patched out, perhaps in future Exchange orr Outlook releases.

We find it very difficult to search the internet as 99% of people have a different problem, the other problem is
that the email did NOT send, or which there are 100s of reasons why.

Hope readers find this useful, that you are not alone.

• Spice
• Reply
•
•

Pimiento

PaoloBkk Mar 31, 2016 at 1:05 PM

1st Post

I had the same issue on a PC where I removed an old account to setup a new email account. Windows 7 -
outlook 2010 - IMAP.

I also noted that I had 2 sets of "Outlook Data File" and the emails were showing in both "Outbox Folder".

I fixed like this:

1. Close Outlook
2. Run Scanpst.exe (C:/Program Files/Microsoft Office/Office14/SCANPST.EXE) and repair.
3. Rename the file Outlook.pst (like Outlook_temp.pst) in C:/users/<username>/MyDocuments/Outlook Files
4. Open Outlook - It will give you error message because it can't find the Outlook file. Just ignore and click cancel,
don't select any file for it. Then close Outlook.
5. Rename the Outlook file again with the correct name (Outlook.pst)
6. Open Outlook

After this process the emails send right away and go to the "Sent" folder. Also the second "Outlook Data
File" set disappeared in my case.

Hope this help!

Edited Mar 31, 2016 at 1:26 PM

• Spice
• Reply
•
•
Sonora

agp5 Jun 7, 2016 at 11:50 AM

Any solution yet?

The same problem with Win10 and Office 2016

• Spice
• Reply
•
•

Pimiento

kashifriaz2 Dec 6, 2016 at 4:40 PM

1st Post

I think i sorted out my problem. i had spent days figuring out the cause and googled it every where. but my
emails got sent instantly but still remains in the outbox as an unse
unsent
nt email. opening it and sending it again
leaves the outbox but gets sent twice to the recipient with current time. This was very embarrassing, and
every time i had to email myself in the BCC to know if the mail was sent or not and had to manually copy my
emails from outbox to sent.

Delay delivery was the culprit i guess. after un

un-checking
checking it every thing came to normal

• Spice
• Reply
•
•

Pimiento

adamtaylor10 Apr 25, 2017 at 5:52 PM

1st Post

I have found something for this problem.

I have two users who use a shared mailbox. I used the registry change to
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Outlook\Preferences adding
DelegateSentItemsStyle type REG_DWORD to (1).

This is suppposed to add sent items to the shared box 'sent items'. It did work for a short amount of time but
then I was getting everything stuck in the user outbox. I have right clicked on the shared box and gone to data
file properties and added the users as owners. This has fixed the outbox problem. Unfortunately the sent
items are no longer in the shared box but the user box. But it's closer!

• Spice
• Reply
•
•