Postbox - Message is stuck in Outbox

[stefanmaine]

I have Postbox 7.0.58 on iMac OS Monterey.

Today, this pop-up appeared:

An outgoing message is stuck in your Unsent folder. Check your Outgoing Server (SMTP) settings.
Delete Messages from the Outbox
If a message is already stuck in the Outbox, navigate to your On My Mac or Local Folders account > Outbox and delete any messages that are not needed.
Then restart Postbox.

These are going to sound like ignorant questions, but ...
(1) Where are my "Outgoing Server (SMTP) settings"?
(2) What/where is the "Outbox"? There is no Outbox among Postbox's folders. Is that a Mac folder? If so where is it?
(3) Where is"On My Mac" or "Local Folders"? I assume I access it at Finder>Go, but then what?

These all sound to me like things I ought to know already, and probably I do. But having just turned 83, I am learning that increasingly, memory is just that, a memory.

Thank you for your help.

 

[ferrarr]

Is PostBox an email client, or is it your email provider? If PostBox is an email client (ie: macOS Mail, MS Outlook, Mozilla Thunderbird) then you should see a reference to "On This Mac" in the apps Preferences.

Or, if they are an email provider, you may need to contact them?

 

[krs]

@stefanmaine - If all you want to do is send the message stuck in your outbox, don't do anything - just wait.
Assuming you have not changed any settings on your Mac, then the most likely problem is an issue with the SMTP server of your email provider and once they fix that the message will go automatically.

 

[Raz0rEdge]

Bob, Postbox is an email client.

@stefanmaine - the SMTP settings are in the configuration of Postbox when you connected it to your email account.

Things will get stuck in your Outbox/Unsent folder when the SMTP (Simple Mail Transport Protocol) server which is used to send the emails is unhappy with your credentials or accounts.

What email service are you using?

 

[stefanmaine]

"Is PostBox an email client"
Yes. It says of itself, "Check if Postbox is the default mail client on startup" - which it is.

"... a reference to 'On This Mac' in the app's Preferences"
Yup! It's there. At Accounts>On My Mac> were several dead email addresses. I deleted them, leaving only my active, current email address.

"If all you want to do is send the message"
Not sure what I wanted, I did nothing more.

"Things will get stuck ... unhappy with your credentials or accounts"
I am guessing (hoping) dead email accounts generate digital unhappiness.

So, after deleting the corpses, I closed Postbox, and restarted the Mac.

The alert "An outgoing message is stuck ..." did not reappear.

Either you fixed it, or scared it away.

As always, thank you all!

 

[stefanmaine]

ALL STOP!

The alert just reappeared.

"What email service are you using?"

I am connected to the internet by Spectrum.

My email address is Gmail: "smtp,gmail.com (default)"

 

[krs]

Things will get stuck in your Outbox/Unsent folder when the SMTP (Simple Mail Transport Protocol) server which is used to send the emails is unhappy with your credentials or accounts.

That is rue - but if nothing was changed on the Mac end this issue should have nothing to do with the Mac credentials or accounts.
I would still just wait unless sending that email right now is urgent.

 

[stefanmaine]

"... wait unless sending that email ... is urgent"

I do not know precisely which email message it is, but, whatever it is, it is not urgent.

I will wait.

PS I did fill in a form (my name, phone number, and like that) on a legitimate, trusted website's page yesterday. It was done on either Brave or Firefox. Not my email account at all. It was not a "message" in the sense of email. Would that count? And even if it is "stuck," no matter.

 

[krs]

I'm not running Montereybut I assume the Apple Email client is similar to Mojave (which is what I'm on).
In the left pane on Apple Mail (which Monterey calls "Postbox"?) there arevarious folders like "Lnbox","Draft", "Sent" etc.
The "Outbox" folder there only shows up if a message ould for some reason not be sent.
You should be able to select the Outbox folder and open the message that is "stuck" there.
I'm posting this because of your comment: "I do not know precisely which email message it is" - just want to make sure we are talking about the same thing.
And your comment/question as the PS has nothing to do with this issue.

 

[MacInWin]

@krs, he isn't using Mail, he is using PostBox, a third party email app.

The Power Email App

Postbox is the power email app for busy professionals, like you.

www.postbox-inc.com

It sounds like PostBox lost the connection to gmail outgoing server, or the gmail outgoing server is offline. About all I can suggest is to redo the smtp server entry in PostBox to see if it connects again, and if not, contact Gmail to see if the server is out of service or has changed somehow.

 

[krs]

@krs, he isn't using Mail, he is using PostBox, a third party email app.

Thanks for setting me straight.

In that case forget everything I have posted.
This is not even a macOS issue and should probably be moved to a different section of the forum.

 

[Randy B. Singer]

Here is something that you may want to try. Every now and then I hear about someone's e-mail account choking on a malformed e-mail message. Here is how to deal with that:

Log into your ISP's mail server using the Web-based interface most ISP's provide, to find and delete the problematic e-mail manually. The problematic one is usually easy to spot. It's usually either spammy or unreadable. If your ISP doesn't offer a Web interface, you can use:

MyPOPBarrier (free):

Site de Th Rob

throb.pagesperso-orange.fr

 

[stefanmaine]

Thank all for your attention. I am not ignoring you. I am following your advice. So far, "An outgoing message is stuck in your Unsent folder ..." continues to appear. The app functions, email comes and goes fine. But it seems I ought to undo the "stuck" ... yes?

I have posted the question to Postbox (the email client), repeating the app's message to me, and asked for specific advice. I await their response.

 

[IWT]

@stefanmaine

If, and only if, you want to check your Outgoing Server (SMTP) settings, I can show you how to do this, with accompanying pictures.

I've had this problem before on Macs and iDevices. Almost always, it has just been a question of inputting your PW in place of the old - SAME PW - not a change. But the process is tricky if you don't know where to look.

That said, these problems often go away themselves, as others have said, especially if your provider has "updated" their servers etc.

Ian

 

[krs]

Thank all for your attention. I am not ignoring you. I am following your advice. So far, "An outgoing message is stuck in your Unsent folder ..." continues to appear. The app functions, email comes and goes fine.

If other emails now can be send and received with no problem, it seems that the issue with the "stuck" email is that"stuck" email itself as Randy suggested, not an issue with the SMTP server or the settings on the Mac.
I would just delete that email, maybe check it first to see if you want to resend it if it is important.

 

[Rod]

Here is Post Box's Support page on the topic search result (Web Search) for, Post Box "An outgoing message is stuck in your Unsent folder ..."

https://support.postbox-inc.com/hc/en-us/articles/202198330-Mail-Stuck-in-the-Unsent-Outbox-Folder

This page explains pretty well what has already been mentioned/suggested in previous replies above and outlines some steps you can take to fix the problem. Maybe you have already seen this if so you can ignore it.