How to delete a message that stays in the outbox after an error message while sending?

Anonymous
2011-07-12T09:22:27+00:00

I tried to send an email message but got an error because the address of one of the recipients was not correct. The message has not been sent, and next to my outbox I see the figure 1, so it's probably still in there. But when I click the outbox, I do not see any message in the messages list. And it's not blocking the sending of any new messages.

I already tried Working Offline, but this seems only to work on Windows PC's, not with Outlook 2011. What to do?

Outlook | MacOS | Legacy Outlook for Mac | For business

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

0 comments
Answer accepted by question author
Anonymous
2011-07-14T03:29:48+00:00

Try this:

Open the AppleScript Editor found in /Applications/Utilities. Paste in the following three lines:

tell application "Microsoft Outlook"

delete every message of outbox

end tell

Click the Run button at the top and this should delete every message in your Outbox.

Hope this helps!

Was this answer helpful?

8 people found this answer helpful.
0 comments
Answer accepted by question author
Anonymous
2014-10-17T10:42:05+00:00

This looks strange... are you sure you have an unsent message in Outbox?

Try the following script:

tell application "Microsoft Outlook"

repeat with msg from 1 to number of messages in outbox

tell message msg of outbox

set str to "Message " & msg & " with subject '" & subject & "' is in outbox"

display dialog str

end tell

end repeat

end tell

Cheers,

Filipe

Was this answer helpful?

0 comments

38 additional answers

Sort by: Newest
Most helpful Newest Oldest
  1. Anonymous
    2014-12-05T17:44:11+00:00

    The error message you pasted is what Gmail is telling outlook, not the actual error when running the Applescript editor.

    Try the following:

    • Put outlook offline
    • Run the following script in script editor:

    tell application "Microsoft Outlook"

    tell message 1 of outbox

    permanently delete

    end tell

    end tell

    Let me know if it helps.

    Cheers,

    Filipe

     YOU'RE MY HERO! :-) This script worked when the original would not. Thank you so much!

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  2. Anonymous
    2014-10-16T19:44:45+00:00

    Hi Filipe,

    I followed your instructions but it didn't clear my error message.  Here is what I see now:

    =======================

    tell application "Microsoft Outlook"

        permanently delete message 1 of outbox

            --> error number -1719 from message 1 of outbox

    Result:

    error "Microsoft Outlook got an error: Can’t get message 1 of outbox. Invalid index." number -1719 from message 1 of outbox

    =======================

    My outgoing message is in my Google IMAP account - is it possible that I need to be more specific in addressing the term "outbox"?  There is no "outbox" sub directory/folder on my outlook so how can I manually locate this message and delete it?

    Thank you.

    Ron

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments