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Can't remove messages from Outbox folder

  • 4 replies
  • 1 has this problem
  • 1 view
  • Last reply by weslowsk

weslowsk
weslowsk
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I'm using Thunderbird on Mac and Linux (60.2.1) and my issue happens on both of them. I have an IMAP account configured against my outlook.com account. When using Thunderbird, I noticed that a couple messages hadn't been sent recently (because they weren't in the sent folder) and discovered that they were instead sitting in an "Outbox" folder in the folder structure of the IMAP account (not the Outbox folder in Thunderbird's Local Folders) in Thunderbird.

If I try to delete one of the messages in the outbox folder, it reappears in a second. So, I can't delete them. When I open up outlook.com, there is no Outbox folder to be seen. When I connect Outlook 365 on Windows to outlook.com, there is an Outbox folder but it's empty. I've tried removing the Outbox and Outbox.msf files on the file system where my Thunderbird profile is (after Thunderbird is closed, of course) and restarting Thunderbird and the folders just show up again. I've also tried "repairing" the outbox folder in Thunderbird but the messages flicker and are right back again. I've also tried removing the outbox folder in Thunderbird but I get an error message that system folders can't be renamed.

How do I fix this Outbox issue with messages that can't be removed?

I'm using Thunderbird on Mac and Linux (60.2.1) and my issue happens on both of them. I have an IMAP account configured against my outlook.com account. When using Thunderbird, I noticed that a couple messages hadn't been sent recently (because they weren't in the sent folder) and discovered that they were instead sitting in an "Outbox" folder in the folder structure of the IMAP account (not the Outbox folder in Thunderbird's Local Folders) in Thunderbird. If I try to delete one of the messages in the outbox folder, it reappears in a second. So, I can't delete them. When I open up outlook.com, there is no Outbox folder to be seen. When I connect Outlook 365 on Windows to outlook.com, there is an Outbox folder but it's empty. I've tried removing the Outbox and Outbox.msf files on the file system where my Thunderbird profile is (after Thunderbird is closed, of course) and restarting Thunderbird and the folders just show up again. I've also tried "repairing" the outbox folder in Thunderbird but the messages flicker and are right back again. I've also tried removing the outbox folder in Thunderbird but I get an error message that system folders can't be renamed. How do I fix this Outbox issue with messages that can't be removed?

All Replies (4)

sfhowes
sfhowes
  • Top 10 Contributor
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What if you unsubscribe from the Outbox (right-click the account in the Folder Pane, Subscribe...), then close TB and delete Outbox and Outbox.msf from the profile folder, then restart TB and re-subscribe to Outbox?

weslowsk
weslowsk Question owner
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I unsubscribed as you suggested but I didn't need to delete the Outbox* files from the profile folder (they were already gone). When I restarted TB, the folder wasn't there (obviously, because I wasn't subscribed to it). I re-subscribed to the Outbox folder and navigated to it using TB and the messages are still there.

Sounds like an outlook.com bug that needs to be fixed by Microsoft? Or am I missing something?

sfhowes
sfhowes
  • Top 10 Contributor
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I see that my Hotmail account doesn't have an Outbox when viewed on the website, yet there is a subscribed Outbox in TB, so I wonder why you have to connect office365 to see the (empty) Outbox. There are quite a few users with a similar problem, for example. What if you select File/Send Unsent Messages, the command to empty the Outbox?

weslowsk
weslowsk Question owner
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File -> Send Unsent Messages can't be selected/clicked (probably meaning it's not detecting any unsent messages...probably because the IMAP account's Outbox folder isn't considered a place where unsent messages would hang out).

Something that may be relevant...

I have several aliases for my outlook.com account configured at the Microsoft site...one of them is my gmail.com account that I migrated from, one of them is an outlook.com one, 2 of them are from my ISP, and the other one is from a custom domain that I own.

Only the ones sent from TB using the gmail.com account are the ones that have gotten stuck in the Outbox. So, I know how to stop adding to the problem...stop "sending as" the gmail.com address. But, I don't know how to clear it out. Also, I recently used the outlook.com Sync Accounts capability to migrate/sync all of my Gmail to outlook.com. Sync Accounts

I think those 2 things are related.

Microsoft won't budge in terms of providing support when I report the issue to them because I'm not using Outlook as a client and I'm also not using the web interface...they keep telling me to contact Thunderbird support and won't touch the problem.