Outlook is widely used email-client in an organization because of its simplicity in the user interface, efficiency and lots of advanced features. Outlook is one of the most used Email clients has its share of problems too. One of the most frequent issues is outlook not sending mails. Your mail is forever stuck in the outbox. Not knowing what to do to resolve these issues reduces the productivity and increases the user frustration.

Going through the internet will show you many fixes which range from clicking a button to repairing or reinstalling Outlook. Trying all of them one by one and not exactly knowing why you are doing could lead to another set of problems.

In this post, we will show how to determine your issue based on Outlook “Connectivity to your server” status. You can find it in the bottom right corner (see below image) –

Below is a list of possible status for outlook not sending mails –

1. Disconnected
2. Work Offline
3. Need Password
4. Trying to connect

Next, we will show you how to fix these by yourself without wasting your time to wait for support engineer or raising the incidents (which takes too much time in approval and its processing) –

Things to try to fix outlook not sending mails –

Case 1: Connectivity to your server. Working Offline

Open Outlook and navigate to Send / Receive ribbon (toolbar) button, then deselect the “Work Offline” (if selected).

This should fix your problem. If not then look at the status message again and move to relevant cases.

Case 2: Connectivity to your server. Trying to connect…

Press Windows icon + R from your keyboard to open run window, then type “outlook.exe /rpcdiag” command to launch the “Outlook Connection Status” (provide credential if prompted by Outlook).

click on “Reconnect” and wait for connection establishment.

After the status is Connected is this dialog check if your problem is resolved.

Case 3: Connectivity to your server. Need Password.

You might have recently changed your email password and forgot to specify in Outlook too. Learn how to do it in Outlook to fix the issue.

Open “Control Panel->Mail32 or Mailxxx bit->Data files->Select your outlook profile->Open File location.

Click on the E-mail tab to expand it, select your email account and click on Change.

Now enter your new password in the Password box, check the box next to “Remember password” and hit Next, then Finish.

Check if your problem is resolved.

Case 4: Connectivity to your server. Disconnected

Please first check Internet connection then try to send emails in outlook.

If your problem is not fixed by following above steps then you could check below additional cases –

Case 5: Outlook’s add-ins is crashing.

Open run window and type “outlook /safe” on launch the outlook in safe mode.

Once Outlook fully starts in Safe Mode, click on the File tab->Options. Wait till”Outlook Option” opens, then click on the Add-ins tab to expand it. Expand the drop-down menu next to Manage (lower-side of the screen) and select COM Add-ins from the list.

Clear each selected checkbox and hit OK. Make sure you have taken a screenshot of the current state of Add-ins list So that you know how to restore the normal configuration afterward. Once done, restart the Outlook and check whether your problem resolved or not.

If you are still facing the issue while sending/receiving mail then follow below steps as a last resort –

Open “Control Panel->Mail32 or Mailxxx bit->Data files->Select your outlook profile->Open File location.

it will open your ost file location. Rename the ost file named with your outlook profile and restart Outlook and try to send an email.

Above steps could easily take 5-20 min depending on the problem. Anakage cobots make the fix of “outlook not sending mails” process simpler. Download it and it will automatically fix your issue by combining automation and taking your inputs as and when needed. Please check our website for more details. If you want to let us walk through you in detail – please fill out this form.