Ubuntu
evolution package

Can't delete large email from outbox

Asked by Kristján Jóhann Kristjánsson

I received an email with a bunch of images from a friend and made the mistake of forwarding it to another friend. On hind sight it was much too large an email to be sending and since I received it and tried to forward it my evolution mail client isn't working at all. So I have 2 email in the outbox I can't get rid of, one of which is the large one. The moment I go to the outbox and try to do anything with them the process starts but doesn't move along, just tries to get the email and..... well nothing happens. I'm using Imap, so I don't know whether I sould just remove the account and try to reinstall but the problem is the emails are in the out box so that is independent of the gmail account I have installed. Is there anyway I can get to the files on my machine and just delete the files so these two bad emails go away?

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Kristján Jóhann Kristjánsson
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Revision history for this message
Eliah Kagan (degeneracypressure) said : 		#1

Are you sure the files *are* anywhere on your machine? IMAP folders are on the server, not your computer. If you are unable to delete a file from your outbox in Evolution, that likely reflects a problem on the server end. In this case, you might consider logging on to the Gmail web interface (https://mail.google.com), find the message in your Sent Mail, and delete it.

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Kristján Jóhann Kristjánsson (krissi) said : 		#2

If only it where that simple. I've already gone in but there is no outbox in gmail so couldn't get to it even if I wanted to. No, it seems the email goes through the outbox on the computer, outside the IMAP that is, so I'm pretty sure that they are on the computer.... but I have no idea how to get to them. simply can't delete the emails. I'm sorry if I'm not giving enough info... is there anything else I need to explain so the problem is clearer? I've looked for similar problems on the forums but most of them, if not all, come with an error message which is not the case here. It simply starts processing and but doesn't move forward. Tried moving them and no go either. Thought the computer was maybe having space issues so I took out some stuff and now I have about 100gb free but hasn't helped.

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Eliah Kagan (degeneracypressure) said : 		#3

Gmail has "Sent Mail" and "Drafts". Have you looked in both those places?

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Kristján Jóhann Kristjánsson (krissi) said : 		#4

Yes, the emails are in neither. I deleted everything in drafts anyway just in case. Also went in to the .evolution folder mail/local/ and deleted the outbox.cmeta as well as teh trash.cmeta files to see if that changed anything but didn't......
this is really frustrating, so far I've had very small issues with ubuntu and evolution but this is really screwing me over. My next move would be to remove the account and trying to reinstall.

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Eliah Kagan (degeneracypressure) said : 		#5

I do recommend renaming the .evolution folder (for example, to .evolution.old); then Evolution won't see it's configuration, and it will create a new one and need to be reconfigured. This fixes most problems, and just knowing whether or not it fixes this one is useful diagnostically.

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Kristján Jóhann Kristjánsson (krissi) said : 		#6

Excellent..... worked, problem solved. I'll have to work with it for a few hours to be sure but I think it fixed it, at the very least these emails are gone. You're a star Eliah. A simple name change and bob's your uncle!

Thanks a lot. Hopefully I can pay back the favor with someone else, as I get better at this stuff.

Take care

Kristjan