Why are my email messages not being sent?

By Jeandre de Beer

It’s happened to most of us – we type an important email and we hit the send button. We trust that this important email will be delivered, but later in the day we get a phone call from an angry customer asking us why we did not keep our promise to send them the info they requested.

Then we see that the email is trapped in the outbox and has never been sent.

The outbox is like a holding area where mails are stored once we hit the send button. Once the mail is forwarded to our recipient – it gets moved from the outbox to the sent items folder.

There are several reasons why an email can get stuck in the outbox.

1. Your computer’s internet connection maybe down.

  You need an active and stable internet connection to send out emails.

2. It’s possible that the server that you use to send out email is faulty.

If your email client (i.e. Outlook) cannot connect with your mail server – the mail will stay in the outbox until a connection can be made.

3. If you are using a laptop – and you are

travelling and you are now connected to a Hotel’s Wi-Fi internet – their service provider might block you from sending emails with your current settings.

You will then need to find out what the Wi-Fi service provider’s outgoing server settings is – and change that on your side.

4. If you are sending a large attachment – it’s possible that the mail will get stuck in the outbox.

It is best practice to keep email attachments smaller than 2mb to ensure smooth delivery. If you need to send larger attachments – try to send them by more than one email.

If for instance you want to send a couple of scanned pdf documents or photos – send them in separate emails and keep the size below 2mb for each email.

Did you know that IT Experts can assist you remotely with any email issues that you may experience?

We can login to your laptop or computer in a matter of minutes and solve any email issue you have – no matter where in the world you are. Give us a call!