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.
Wow! Thanks! Very helpful. You just saved my life right there. ?
That was friggin’ genius! Thank you so much for the help!
Pete
Hi Pete …..Jeff here, iphone 6s
Question on this, a message has been stuck in my outbox for 3 days now, how annoying, anyways, I enabled airplane mode, went into the out box but the edit is in gray not blue and therefore I am still unable to delete the freaking message…..any suggestions?
I’m having the same issue. hoping to find a solution. prb is on my gmail acc’t loaded to my iphone.
Exit and relaunch mail is what worked for me..then the edit text is no longer gray
As some of the others mentioned, you have to close all the programs and then re-launch Mail and go back into your Outbox. Same thing happened to me and it had been there for 10 days trying to send a huge video file! Sigh.
I found that using the Airplane Mode in “Settings” did not work, but when I used the Airplane Mode from the bottom of the screen’s Control Center it worked! (the Edit went from grey to blue)
I found that going to the “master” outbox didn’t do the trick for one email (there were four others that had an error of some kind). I went into the individual email account’s outbox and then I could select the “Edit” button and delete the email.
It did not work for me. Not sure what you meant by “hard exit” but I hit the home button and got out, then opened up again. Nothing 🙁 I even tried re-booting my phone and it still did not work
The above didn’t work for me either .. so I deleted the email account from my mail list, added it back as a new account and the problems was solved.
I love you Alyson.
Thank you!!! This worked great
That worked. Thank u so much!
Wow — worked perfectly! And yes it was an email with a too large video file attached. I hit email mistakenly instead of cloud link for the video!! Thank you soooo much!!!
Thank uuuu!!! U saved me too!!! The point is – hard quit email app and restart again. Then it will work 🙂
I wish I could like this 1 million times. Thank you so much for this information. It really helped me.
Work a charm. Stuck email was killing my battery.
Thank you. That was brilliant. Stupid winzip email an unending nightmare until you came along. It was making other things stuck.
Thank you SO much!!!!! I tried other online advice elsewhere to no avail. As well as being very concerning, that swirling message was driving me crazy!!!!
Great, I was looking for solution for couple of hours. Every solution was too sofisticated and didnť work either. This is pretty simple and worked perfectly for me!
Thanks a lot!!!
Finally!!!!! Thank you. Joseph
Thank you so much it worked!
thank you, it worked exactly as you instructed.
I was about to give up on fixing this and restore my device because none of the other versions of this fix had worked and I was sure this stuck email was the reason my phone’s battery was expiring so quickly, requiring daily charges since this issue started. THANK YOU so much for posting this.
You’re very welcome! I’m glad it worked!
Thank you 🙂
Saved my bacon as well! Thank you…
Thank you for this welcome relief, especially after spending an inordinate amount of time on hold in queue. I tried calling AppleCare two days, but the wait was ridiculous. Maybe Apple needs to beef up their AppleCare Customer Service ranks to handle the load, considering it’s a PREPAID SERVICE!
Thank you sooooooo much!
thank you so much, this worked perfectly for me!! I had posted this problem in Apple Support Community and nothing suggested worked for me.
Even in airplane mode the edit function is unavailable and I can not open or edit the message. It shows the gray moving circle so i’m pretty sure its going to trying to send when I’m on cell mode. Also the recipient keeps getting an email just with the subject line — every morning at 1am. help
Are you hard quitting the mail app after enabling airplane mode? Can’t skip that step or it won’t work.
Thank you so much, this finally deleted the email that was sitting in my outbox and resending to my client several times per week
How do you hard quit the mail app ?
double tap your home button (only button of iphone screen) and swipe up that app to hard quit
That’s the SECRET! Took a few minutes to find the mail app when I swiped sideways. When I enabled airplane mode and went to mail I was asked to turn off airplane mode or use WiFi to access data. I clicked OK. The source of my problem was trying to send a large video.
You’re amazing Allyson. Can’t thank you enough for this perfect fix
OMG!! I’ve been fighting this thing for 3 months! And you just fixed it in 3 minutes!!
Thank you SOOOO much!!
WOW! I searched “iphone mail app outbox not sending emails” and you were 4th on page 1. Apple’s forum didn’t even discuss YOUR easy fix. Thank you! I followed you on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google+, You Tube – Vianey Ojeda – The Hanover Group | kw® – http://maximizemysalesprice.com/
I had a huge video that had an endless “working circle” status (not a red exclamation mark). The steps didn’t work at first, but I re-read them and then hard booted my phone. When I opened my email back up, I finally had a red exclamation mark and could delete the email. Oy.
Thank You, TY, TY!
You’re brilliant!!!
Thank you!!!! Worked perfectly (and I’m no longer frustrated… Even the Genius Bar geeks couldn’t figure this one out but you did!!!).
A Million Thank You’s!!
I’ve had an email stuck in my outbox for 4 months now! It was driving me nuts. Not to mention the person who I originally sent the email to keeps getting the same email over and over and again. I felt so bad that I couldn’t stop it.
Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!
The option to ‘Edit’ is greyed out for me and I can’t select it, any thoughts anyone?
Are you in airplane mode? Shouldn’t be if you are.
thanks so much!
I, too, have put my phone into airplane mode, and the edit is still greyed out. So this solution is not working for me. I have also turned the phone off and back on, and again, still the email remains in outbox with the spinning sending thing.
Given this, do you have any solutions?
Thanks!
Did you completely quit the mail app before you tried (after airplane mode)
Thanks! You’re a genius!
V smart. Thanks, that was wrecking my head!
Thank you, thank you…it worked. An email with a video attachment was stuck in my outbox for days. It was continuously spinning and using up my battery too. I tried once and the edit was still greyed. I then shut down my phone and when it re-started….oh happy day I could edit and trash all.
Seems like most of the time when messages get stuck, the culprit is a large attachment.
what do you mean by hard quitting?
Thank you,
Hey,
BIG THANKS… This was driving me bonkers for a few hours now. I had some large files and figured… Well I don’t know what I figured :)…
Thanks again!
Awesome! I had this problem a few weeks ago and it took hours to fix. Happened again today but, with your tip, it took less than 30 seconds! Thanks!
Tried deleting message but the edit button is grey-out. is there another solution?
Reboot if it is greyed out (while you are still in airplane mode)
It worked! Thanks
Seriously, you just saved my sanity. I was getting ready to chuck my iPhone out the window. Thank you!
Thanks!
Thanks! This worked after I Force-Quit Mail. You might want to add this step to your directions, but I did it after reading the comments. Thanks again!
OMG its been three weeks and it’s finally gone! AMEN!!!!! Thx!!
Perfect!! This has been driving me insane. Worked a treat! THANK YOU!!
Worked like a charm. Thank you!
Thank you so much. This was a headache for a considerable time.
Lordy! Thank you! Two weeks one email has sat in there spinning!
The edit button is not highlighted and the wheel is still spinning even in airplane mode. I can’t even add the outbox when editing the folders that can be edited.
Finally. Shut it down like 5 times in airplane mode and out. Finally it came up in outbox with edit button blue. Hit the button and cancelled it.
Seems redundant to echo all the accolades, but, I have to say that you hit the nail on the head here. Many, many thanks!!
Finally – thank you so much Allyson.
Thank you! This worked like a charm. It was driving me crazy for days.
Works. BUT MAKE SURE you do instruction number 4 correctly IF your EDIT button will not work.
totally works – thank you!! I had no idea how to get it out. And because of a stuck message in outbox all my other emails with pictures were not going out. You rock!
Thank You!