Ever launch the Mail app on your iPhone to find a stuck outbox message that just won’t send — or maybe it did send but for some reason it still shows as not sent? While in some cases you can simply delete it and move on, in others, the Edit button is greyed out and unusable. If that sounds like a problem you’re having, here’s a fix I found: My partner recently had this problem over the weekend. It seems to happen more commonly with emails that have large files attached to them. In her case, it was a video. The sender confirmed they had received the message, yet it still sat in her outbox, uneditable, for several days. After hard restarting the Mail app, rebooting her iPhone, and even turning iCloud Mail on and off again, I finally figured out how to trick the Mail app into letting me delete the stuck message:
How to delete stuck outbox messages on iPhone
- Swipe up from the bottom of the screen to launch Control Center.
- Enable Airplane Mode.
- Now launch the Mail app and access your Outbox where the problem message resides.
- You should now be able to tap the Edit button in the upper right hand corner — if you can’t just hard quit the Mail app in the multitasker and launch it again.
- Tap Trash All in the bottom navigation.
- Confirm your selection in popup menu.
- You should now have an empty outbox.
In some cases, stuck outbox messages on iPhone can apparently consume lots of cellular data (I read a few horror stories in Apple’s support forums when looking for an answer). So if you have any, especially if they show a little loading circle like the one in the image above, I’d suggest clearing them out using the steps above.
Wonderful! Thanks for the clear, helpful post 🙂
Thank you! Problem solved. One other thing I did before I was able to send it to trash was to close out all the open apps – a whole lot of them it turned out!
Thanks!!!! airplane mode plus rebooting works!!!
Thank you so much for this, Allyson, I had an e-mail with a video attachment hung up for over a day and this was a super quick fix I would never have thought of for an aggravating problem!
Thank you!!!! I’ve spent time at us cellular and 45 min w our email server and had this thing sitting spinning away since 4/27. After following your recommendations, it’s gone!
Super! It worked just as you said it would. Thanks so much for the easy and clear help!
Unable to clear even after reboot and airplane mode, help!
Thank you!!!!
Allyson,
Wow thank you so much.
I was getting so frustrated as I could not not sent any emails due to this one email with large video file blockage.
Thank you again
Max
Worked perfectly! Thanks so much for the easy fix!
Thanks Allyson, worked great for me as well.
Adding to that, did not work with just Airplane mode for me; had to hard quit the Mail app as well, then all worked.
THANK YOU!!!!!! You are a queen. This was driving me MAD – so relieved it’s gone now 😀
You are amazing!!! Thank you for sharing this… It worked, and now all my emails are sending again.
That was brilliant and simple! I thought I would always have a stuck outbox. Thank you!
Thank you!!! It actually worked 🙂 I couldn’t get a video emailed to me out of my outbox and it was driving me nuts! So again–thanks!
#MiracleWorker Thanks!
The email gets stuck in the outbox but is not a large file. It’s just a couple of words.
I dont want to delete I want to send and they dont go!
It’s probably one from the outbox holding up all others. If you can find out which one, you can just delete the one and the others will send.
Awesome… thanks for the tip!
swipe to delete
Put in Airplane mode, delete message in OutBox folder…
Thank you! A huge e-mail/attachment got stuck. Not anymore 🙂
This is the only description that worked seamlessly. You’re great!
Thanks! I tried to send a large video and it got trapped in the Outbox Purgatory! This worked perfectly! Thanks!
Mail has been sitting there for months! I knew it had to be something like this, but your process took care of it. Thanks!
Mail has been sitting in my outbox for almost a month, slowing all my sent e mail. I followed your instruction but Edit button doesn’t show up. How could i delete the mail in out box?
Thank you! Nothing else I found would work because the edit button was not available but once I turned the phone on airplane mode it worked 🙂
Thank you! Having the same problem and your solution was the best!
Thank you! I’ve been stuck with this for weeks and could not find a solution until giving the search “one more try”. Yours is the only solution that worked. Made my day!
Didnt work for me 🙁 … the edit button in outbox remained greyed out. Tried Hard quit and still no difference.
Hi, close the mail app fully by using double tap of home button or swipe up on the iphone X and then go back on to it whilst in flight mode, also make sure all wifi is off etc. Then try it. Worked for me
Wow thanks so much, I had to follow the note from Aden Taylor and then it worked as well, really appreciate the note
You are the best! This worked on my iPhone X. Bless you, Aden.
Worked very well for me! It’d been stuck for months. Thank you!
Thank you! That worked on my iPhone 8+ For a stuck video.
Thank you!!! Wouldn’t have been able to fix without your help.
Thanks so much. You saved me!
Works for iOS 12! Thank you!