Emails with photo attachments won't send, stuck in Outbox

[Tom Zagar]

Sad thing. I had this issue on my Samsung Galaxy Note I, but I thought it was caused by custom rom connected with semi-broken antenna. But no, this is still here on LG G3. This is a Gmail bug definitely, and really sad story Google can't develop an email client which is able to send couple of photos.. Yeah, sad story.

 

[Narge]

Hello. I have the EXACT PROBLEM WITH MY SAMSUNG GALAXY S4. I was able to send and receive pictures up until a couple of weeks ago with no problems. I have tried deleting my verizon acct and racing back with no luck. I've tried adding k9 mail still working. I am so frustrated! Any ideas as to why all of a sudden the problem? Are there any fixes? I feel like my s4 is just a big paperweight right now....

Help please!!!!!!!

 

[vhyde68]

I'm having this exact same problem!!! It started happening about 2 months ago. l thought it was a provider issue (AT&T) but from reading all these posts I believe it's a Samsung Galaxy issue? I have an S3 have been waiting to upgrade to the 4 or 5. This "bug" creates major issues for me so now I'm not so sure about sticking with these phones.
Has anyone come up with a real solution?

 

[Penolope]

I just started having this problem and after a lot of hours tried using my email (not gmail) on my Galaxy S5 phone and this works perfectly! I just go to the photo I want to send, click on the sign for "Share via" and use the regular email. I hope this works for others with this problem.

 

[Germ99]

:'(
It is an Android issue. You now have to use the email central on your device if you want to email pictures. In the past I used a downloaded mobile version of the yahoo mail application without problems. This no longer works for sending pictures from my camera. Instead, I had to add my yahoo email as an account to the email central application on my phone. I'm pissed because my email and contacts are not the business of my cellular provider but now I am forced to give it to them if I want to use the features on my phone. This was the only reason why I did not purchase an iPhone but that will be changing. My phone is an S3 and it's time for me to upgrade, and I now see no reason not to switch to iPhone.

 

[LouThomas]

I'm having this problem fairly frequently when using the Gmail app. My emails will sit in the Outbox forever with the "Sending..." status next to them. It only happens when I'm sending photos as attachments. It happens regardless of whether I'm connected to WiFi, 4G or 3G. It is not an issue of simple slow sending speed... sometimes the emails will sit in the outbox for hours before magically sending. Refreshing the Outbox or re-tapping "Send" does nothing.

Sometimes switching the phone to airplane mode and back again helps. Sometimes force closing the Gmail app and reopening helps. Sometimes I just can't get the damned thing to send no matter what.

What gives!!??

This solved the problem for me on 4.4.4:

Go to apps in settings and select gmail.

Uninstall all updates, which takes the app back to its original software, but preserves account settings (you'll probably lose unsent mail).

It should now allow sending going forward.

If you like, go to the Google Play store and reinstall the Gmail updates by tapping the Update button for Gmail. It continued to send messages after that, for me.

 

[Dennis Petty]

I just set up a Hotmail account on my phone and sent the same pictures. Woolah!!!!! They're there like magic. God I love technology!!!!

 

[Marilyn Pageau]

This problem is still around in May of 2015!! I'm finally so frustrated with my gmail account on the Samsung Galaxy S4 that I Googled to find a solution and found these dialogues. I've owned this phone since November of 2012 (I'm on the Verizon Wireless plan 4G and have Verizon wifi at home.) and the problem has now become even worse in that even ordinary non-attachment emails won't send. People receive critical, timely emails I sent 24 hours after I sent them!!

I may try starting a Yahoo account; I'm also wondering if perhaps an AOL account would work (I already have one of those.) I'm also wondering if the problem could be related to the device storage being almost full. Anyone had issues related to device storage being full? I've inserted a 64 gig SD card (I'm a photographer.) but, the device basic storage is so full, I can't even accept system updates or add apps to the phone. I'm also going to try moving photos to text message and sending to email or my FB. If anyone finds the perfect solution, please reply.

 

[Marilyn Pageau]

I tried my existing (old) AOL account and voila -- instant send of the same photo attachment (2MB) that I'd had stuck in SENDING mode on my Samsung Galaxy S4 for over 2 hours and counting!!! Apparently the problem is some sort of incompatibility between gmail and Samsung! Sad. I hate to have to use my old AOL account for all attachment sends.

 

[franks316]

I found a workaround but have a Kyocera Urbano phone - not sure if this works with other phones -

I played around and found the LTE setting and turned it on - immediately got a connection (had disabled home WiFi from one of the suggestions) and all 16 pending e-mails with photos attached went out. Done.

I *think* I have a data package, so should be fine.

/F

 

[ladyfsgf]

Having same problem w/s5 and don't have AT&T. Have USCellular. Started about 10 days ago. The pic attachment sent to laptop June 6 but several since then have not gone to my laptop.

Didn't work.

I have had my S5 for over a year and I am frequently using my phone for pics and email them to my laptop. I did not have the problem sending pic attachments until about 10 days ago. The last pic attachment I sent was 6/6/2015 without issues. Probably about 12 since and is not going to my laptop. So apparently not happening to all at same time. I don't download updates. I've shut the phone down several times and removed the battery and did the "power cycle"-none fixed it.

I don't use gmail. I use the email.

 

[alben973]

Resolution to emails with attachments not leaving out box. On a Samsung s7 using yahoo mail app. Instead of producing an email and then adding attachment photo, go to photo's and without opening the intended photo, just press down on the photo and a check mark will appear on photo. A menu including "share" will appear on the screen.select share and you get numerous selections including yahoo mail. Select yahoo mail and this will take you to your email page with the photo already inserted, and at this point just type out your email and select send. The email should go out without issues. No one was able to resolve my stuck in outbox issue until I finally got a support person who related the above process, and problem solved. Hope this helps.

 

[willydintx]

Thanks. That solution worked on my S4.

 

[willydintx]

My post went to the wrong place. The writer who suggest using "share" rather tan e-mail got it right.

 

[Menasche]

I also had this problem and so far I figured out two reasons why this happens:
1) You switch the 'phone or the Wi-Fi off before finishing sending a message (it happened to me when traveling on the London Underground network, where the Wi-Fi cuts off between stations).
2) When the memory in your handset reaches a critical stage, with less than 300MB of "Available" space left - usually when the Hard Disk icon appears, which means "Not enough storage space".
The first problem has disappeared since last year (2015), looks like they fixed it somehow.
The second problem is manageable, if you watch out for this icon, delete the files you have sent / saved elsewhere and the message "Cannot Sync" will not show anymore and the Outbox in GMail will suddenly 'flush' out all the waiting messages into the "Sent" folder.
Hope this helps.

 

[dickson muhumuza]

I have had my S5 for over a year and I am frequently using my phone for pics and email them to my laptop. I did not have the problem sending pic attachments until about 10 days ago. The last pic attachment I sent was 6/6/2015 without issues. Probably about 12 since and is not going to my laptop. So apparently not happening to all at same time. I don't download updates. I've shut the phone down several times and removed the battery and did the "power cycle"-none fixed it.

I found a solution, deleted some inbox items and it worked.

 

[Zia Majeed]

I had the same problem, sometimes it doesn't give you a pop up to update the app. Just go to playstore and find gmail app to get it updated. Mine is working well since it is updated. Thanks.

 

[Joo Boy]

Strangely, this happened to me with some attachment emails for the first time that I know off yesterday.
HOWEVER, I went to the Gallery and shared the images and selected Gmail as the share method.

I don't just want them to randomly go whenever as I spend half the day on 4G data!

 

[Denisemason]

This is a gmail bug. Uninstall gmail and reinstall at playstore.
Worked perfectly.
Not an android issue.

 

[MikeInMexico]

Seems to be related to the size of the attachment. When I try to share straight from my camera, gets stuck in the outbox. If I cut the resolution of the photo in half, it goes through.
Reinstalling the Gmail app did nothing for me.