Help! 1000 Bulk emails stuck in Outbox (Outlook 2007) - Calgarypuck Forums - The Unofficial Calgary Flames Fan Community

alltherage · 03-08-2010, 11:11 AM

I sent out a mass email to our customers that is basically a promo flyer. They are all interested in receiving it so spam is not the issue here.

I sent them out in bunches of 50 so I didnt over load the system. We use a software called maximizer to do a mail merge for the emails going out.

As I was sending the bunches of 50, about 200+ emails went out fine, but then about 1000 got log jammed in my outbox in Outlook 2007 and haven't sent. (We use Windows 7 at the office here too, fyi.)

They didnt have any large attachments, just a small graphic that the customer can click to view the whole flyer.

Anyways, I have about 1000 emails stuck in my outbox. When I close and re-open outlook it seems to release 4 or 5 and then stop again. I can open the emails one by one and send them manually as well... but I cant right-click multiple emails and click send... there's no option.

I've also scoured the Send/Receive button and options- nothing.

The problem is I dont have time to sit here and try to send 1000 emails manually, and they are all sitting in my outbox.

Is there any way to force my outbox to purge all these emails? Google's totally useless, I called my IT company, they're stumped, and this is driving me crazy. By the time I get this worked out the promotion will be over!

Anyone have a solution for this? Thanks in advance.

OutOfTheCube · 03-08-2010, 11:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by alltherage

Is there any way to force my outbox to purge all these emails? Google's totally useless, I called my IT company, they're stumped, and this is driving me crazy. By the time I get this worked out the promotion will be over!

You'd likely be at least half way done if you skipped all that stuff and sent them manually.

mykalberta · 03-08-2010, 11:17 AM

Is this at home or at work?

Are you emailing from shaw or do you use someone else for your email hosting or does your company host their own email services?

Bobblehead · 03-08-2010, 11:23 AM

Ask your ISP. They often have controls to prevent spammers (you say you aren't a spammer, how does the ISP know) or to prevent someone who is hacked from unknowingly spamming.

alltherage · 03-08-2010, 11:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by OutOfTheCube

You'd likely be at least half way done if you skipped all that stuff and sent them manually.

That may be so, but this is not a one off, its something that we'll be keeping up with so this simply isnt an option. Nor am I in any way interested in that type of mindless repetative work... I'd much rather solve the problem.

Quote:

Originally Posted by mykalberta

Is this at home or at work?

Are you emailing from shaw or do you use someone else for your email hosting or does your company host their own email services?

We host our own, our company has its own server. It's run by a tech company and we get tons of support from them. They are usually awesome, and even I am usually savy enough to keep rolling without their help... this is beyond me though.

alltherage · 03-08-2010, 11:43 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bobblehead

Ask your ISP. They often have controls to prevent spammers (you say you aren't a spammer, how does the ISP know) or to prevent someone who is hacked from unknowingly spamming.

Yeah, I have- they said that if I send it out in bunches I should be OK. Also, we are not sending out 1 email to 1200 people, we're sengin 1200 seperate emails to 1200 people.

My techs are pretty savy on the smap side of things, they mentioned the same thing to me but after looking at my process they think I will be safe.

Thanks.

Jimmy Stang · 03-08-2010, 09:43 PM

Although this doesn't help you fix Outlook in this case, I recommend using Mail Chimp for this type of thing. It allows you to maintain your lists, provide opt-in and opt-out functionality, it authenticates your outgoing mail (so you don't get snagged by filters as much). It is all web-based so it doesn't bog down your own resources. You can develop templates, pick segments of your list to target, etc. And... perhaps best of all, it cleans your lists automatically based on your bounces.

At work, we used to go through the same thing trying to send out our legitimate newsletters. Sending out smaller batches, running our own mail server, etc. Nothing has really worked as well.

Sluggo · 03-09-2010, 05:55 AM

You could always set up a mouse recorder/keystroke macro.

alltherage · 03-09-2010, 01:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sluggo

You could always set up a mouse recorder/keystroke macro.

I suppose... Thanks for the input, I just wish I could get it to go properly without these crazy work-arounds.

Thanks for the help everyone- still looking for a solution if anyone is so inclined. I appreciate all the feedback so far but I really want this to work the "right" way since it should be a process I can repeat throughout the year.

gargamel · 04-30-2010, 03:22 PM

This isn't related to the original topic, but I didn't want my first ever thread to be a stupid Outlook question, so I thought I'd put it here.

I replied to an important email today and then noticed that the replied icon (the envelope with the purple arrow) wasn't showing up. The icon usually shows up when I reply to a message, but I noticed that a few other random replies that I've sent don't have the icon either. These emails are still showing up in my "sent mail" folder, so I'm guessing that they've gone out, but I don't really want to take a chance. Can anyone confirm that these emails are actually going out?

Frank MetaMusil · 04-30-2010, 03:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gargamel

This isn't related to the original topic, but I didn't want my first ever thread to be a stupid Outlook question, so I thought I'd put it here.

I replied to an important email today and then noticed that the replied icon (the envelope with the purple arrow) wasn't showing up. The icon usually shows up when I reply to a message, but I noticed that a few other random replies that I've sent don't have the icon either. These emails are still showing up in my "sent mail" folder, so I'm guessing that they've gone out, but I don't really want to take a chance. Can anyone confirm that these emails are actually going out?

If they are in sent mail, they have gone out successfully. Try sending one to yourself, or another email address you own.

gargamel · 04-30-2010, 03:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Frank MetaMusil

If they are in sent mail, they have gone out successfully. Try sending one to yourself, or another email address you own.

I have and the icon is showing up. I don't really care about the logo though, as long as the email went out. Since it's in the sent mail folder, I guess it did.