Is your email stuck in Outlook? Here are the some of the reasons and how to resolve them.
Email Stuck in Outlook
Are you trying to send an email to someone but it is constantly being stuck? That can be very annoying, especially if it is an urgent email. Sometimes Outlook can keep an email stuck between sending it and failing it. So, it means that it will neither be sent nor will it be failed (so you can at least get the error message).
Email stuck in Outlook will be inside your “Outbox” folder, which is different than the “Sent” folder, which is where the sent emails are stored. So, if you see an item in your ‘Outbox’ folder, that means that Outlook is trying to send it but failing.
Here are some major causes and what you can do about them:
First: A large attachment.
If you are trying to send a large attachment, sometimes it may result in a stuck email. To solve this, you first need to change Outlook to “offline mode.” To do that, click “Send/Receive” options and enable “Work Offline” mode. This mode means that Outlook is no longer connected to the internet and is not communicating with the mail servers.
Go to the “Outbox” folder and either delete the email or drag it to the ‘Drafts’ folder. In some cases, you may have to close the Outlook to do that. If Outlook itself is stuck and refusing to close, use the Task Manager to force-close the process.
Launch Outlook again and try to delete or drag to drafts now.
Now either create the email again or delete the attachment from the drafts and try to reduce the size of attachments and send again.
Second: Bad Connection
Second major cause is bad connection from the users’ end. You can find out if the connection is completely gone by checking the bottom bar of Outlook. If it says “Working Offline,” the chances are that your connection is bad.
In some cases, even if connection is there, it might be too slow and may be causing the problems with the email.
If that’s the case, the solution is simple. Wait for the connection to be back up. Outlook will automatically send the stuck email. If not, repeat the steps above (deleing email from Outbox and try again.)
Third: Password
If you have recently changed your password, that may be why Outlook can’t connect to the servers. Sometimes, you will not get any error or notification informing about the wrong password. Go to the “Account Settings” from “File” and then to the “Email” tab and enter your new password.
Fourth: Corruption
This is one of the most common cause for Outlook to be behaving oddly. If none of the above solutions work, then you will have to follow one or all of the following steps:
- Repair Outlook program from Windows control panel
- You can repair your Outlook Profile (by going to account settings and choosing repair in the “Email” tab)
- Repair your PST file using ScanPST.exe program offered by Microsoft. You can find the .exe program inside the installed Outlook directory.
Few other solutions you might try:
- Turn off your antivirus in case it is interfering (usually happens if the extension of attachment file is suspicious)
- Try Outlook in safe mode to check if any add-on is the culprit then disable it.
- Restarting the PC can sometimes work as it stops any background process that may be in conflict.
- Check firewall connections and see if Outlook is not blocked
- If nothing else works, reinstalling Outlook works but check your backups carefully before doing so as some data may loss during reinstallation.
Hopefully, you will be able to solve the problem of an email stuck in Outlook with the help of the tips above.