Purpose of 'Outbox' in 'Mail'

[robinpe]

What is the actual purpose of the 'Outbox' file in Mail. Yesterday I sent out about 20 emails, I looked in the 'Sent' file today & only 3 had left, all the others are sitting in the 'Outbox'. Why?

 

[topgundcp]

Mails waiting to be sent or it might be a large email that is in the process of being sent. Once it is completely sent it will move to your Sent Items folder. If it is taking a long time to send it might be a very large attachment or if mail exceeds the size limit, it will be stuck in the outbox.

 

[robinpe]

Thanks for that topguntcp, but what is the limit for each Mail email? These all have 4 photos on each as an attachment, surely that can't exceed a limit. I've rec'd photos & videos that are far in excess of that! I looked in the outbox again this morning they're all still sitting in there.
New edit. I decided to get all these emails in the 'Outbox' off the books, so I Googled a request how to do it, as there is no method to delete emails in the 'Outbox'. The answer is to leave the 'Outbox' folder open, turn off the Wi-Fi connection, now a 'Trash' bin icon has appeared in the 'Outbox' folder. I deleted them all. Doesn't solve the problem as to how to send a few photos by attachment, but at least it's not using up a lot of space in my 'Task Manager'.

 

[topgundcp]

Size limit on an email is usually determined by the Mail service provider, for example free yahoo mail is 10MB limit, but as you said the size of your emails are not the case. My guess is sometimes the mail server mistakenly identified your emails as some type of malware/spyware/virus and will fail to send the emails.

I've run into a problem with large size email and it got stuck in the outbox and depending on what email client you use to get rid of them. I use Windows Live Mail and all I had to do is make Windows Live Mail works offline (No internet connection) and maneuver to C:\Users\yourlogon\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows Live Mail and delete what in the outbox folder.

 

[robinpe]

Thanks for that. It appears a lot of my emails without attachments are not being sent. I'll try & get hold of my service provider.

 

[Kari]

One factor to think is the upload speed of your broadband connection.

An example: A PNG image file can easily be over 1 MB, whereas the same image converted to JPG is generally about one fifth of the size of PNG. So let's say we are sending 4 images converted to JPG to save space, each image 200 KB, to 20 recipients, that makes 4*20*200 = 16,000 KB = 15.6 MB.

To upload (send) that amount of data takes over 2 minutes using 1 Mbps upload speed provided you could use the max speed all the time, which is not possible; there will always be some overhead. The same data uploaded with 512 Kbps upload line in ideal conditions (max speed all the time) would take over 4 minutes, with 256 Kbps almost 8 and a half minutes.

If you now turn the mail client off or logout from your user account before all the messages are sent, they will remain in your Outbox until the mail client is online next time and continues sending.

Kari

 

[robinpe]

Very interesting Kari, thanks for that. But I now find that my ordinary emails without any attachments are not sending but going straight into my 'Outbox' & remaining there. I've checked with my ISP email supplier & I can use the email service there with no problem, I also checked with my old laptop & I can send emails fine from there too. So it's something to do with this Win8 'Mail' service. I looked on the Internet at several sites pertaining to this problem but with no avail. Any suggestions? P.S. I emptied my 'Outbox' by turning off Wi-Fi but that didn't help either.

 

[Kari]

If you right click on mail app and select Sync (button at bottom left when you right click to show options), are the messages sent and Outbox emptied?

 

[robinpe]

If you mean me to right click on the 'Mail' app on the 'Start screen', I don't have a 'Sync' icon at the bottom at all, If you mean click on the 'Sync' icon with the 'Mail' folder opened, no it does not send a message I typed. When I clicked on the 'Send' icon the message went into the 'Outbox', I waited a few seconds & it then transferred to 'Drafts', it is now sitting in there, apparently asleep.

 

[HippsieGypsie]

Hello robinpe. It's strange that it's transferring outbox to drafts. It seems to me that the Mail app may be corrupt or not the latest version. Do you have the latest updated Mail app? Is there a number on your Store tile on the Start Screen? If so, please update apps.

Is there any issues in your Action Center? If so, please resolve those.

You may want to try http://www.eightforums.com/tutorial...apps-troubleshooter-fix-apps-windows-8-a.html

You may want to run http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials/3047-sfc-scannow-command-run-windows-8-a.html?filter at least 3 times to fix issues.

Please note the Related Tutorials list at the end of each tutorial. They may be helpful.

Hoping that helps you.

 

[Kari]

If you mean me to right click on the 'Mail' app on the 'Start screen', I don't have a 'Sync' icon at the bottom at all, If you mean click on the 'Sync' icon with the 'Mail' folder opened, no it does not send a message I typed. When I clicked on the 'Send' icon the message went into the 'Outbox', I waited a few seconds & it then transferred to 'Drafts', it is now sitting in there, apparently asleep.

This might be a user related issue...

I will try to explain it one more time, this time very simple. If it is still too complicated, please let me know:

1. Open (launch) the Windows Mail App by clicking its tile (icon) on Start Screen. Please understand your Mail App Tile might look different than that in my screenshot:

​

(Also notice that even the text in screenshot says Click Here, you should not click the screenshot itself in this post but a similar tile on your Start Screen.)

2. When Mail App has opened, right click (press the right mouse button once) to open Settings context menu, click Sync:

​

(Notice that your actual mail messages and page layout might differ from that pictured in my screenshot.)

Now check if the messages from Outbox are sent.

Kari

 

[robinpe]

Solved

Hi kari, Yes, I figured that's what you meant. However, clicking on the Sync icon didn't do anything visibly. But what I learnt from another email post is that I hadn't updated my Mail app since I bought this notebook in Jan. I updated & everything seems to work ok now. I also updated all the other apps that needed it.