Delete messages from the outqueue

To delete messages from the VPOP3 'OutQueue':

1. log into the VPOP3 settings

2. go to the Users page

3. click on the OutQueue entry in the accounts list. This will show you a list of all the messages waiting to be sent by VPOP3

4. Select the messages you want to delete, and either Hold or Delete them. Holding a message will leave it in the OutQueue, but VPOP3 will not try to send it. Deleting a message will remove it from the OutQueue permanently.

Note that you cannot delete items from the VPOP3 OutQueue whilst VPOP3 is in the process of sending them, so you should stop VPOP3 from sending first.

Bulk Delete

In v6.9 and later, you can go to Users -> OutQueue and then press Bulk Action to delete messages based on some criteria.

Enter the required criteria in the boxes and choose Delete in the Action to perform box, and press the Process Action button to delete the messages.

The Messages Affected line tells you how many messages will be deleted, which can be used as a sanity check, and the Refresh Affected Message Count will update that number if you have changed any of the criteria.

See the online reference manual for more details.

Alternative method for version 4 or earlier

If there are too many messages in the outqueue and you cannot delete them using the above method, you can delete all the messages them the 'backdoor way'. To do this, stop VPOP3, then delete all the Q*.DAT files in the VPOP3\Outqueue directory, then restart VPOP3. (Note that doing it this way, you can't be selective about which messages you delete).

If you want to save some messages, you could move the Q*.DAT files into another folder on the disk, then move them back in smaller chunks, deleting the unwanted messages as you go.

If the messages are in the outqueue due to a problem of some sort, it can be worth keeping some of the Q*.DAT files for diagnostic/forensic purposes.

Alternative method for version 5 or later

If there are too many messages in the outqueue and you cannot delete them using the above method, you can delete messages by accessing the database directly.

1. Go to Settings → Database → Query

2. Choose 'Outqueue' from the 'Schema Name' box

If you know the IP address of the original sender of the messages, type:

DELETE FROM outmessages WHERE senderip='<sender IP address>';

and press Do Query

If you know the authenticated sender of the messages, type:

DELETE FROM outmessages WHERE authsender='<sender user name>';

and press Do Query

Otherwise you will need to empty the outqueue totally, so type:

DELETE FROM outmessages;

and press Do Query

If you cannot start VPOP3, or get into the VPOP3 settings, then you can delete outqueue messages directly from the database.