Why do my emails delete after reading them in Outlook 2003?

Outlook trying to send message that does not exist?

• I have Office 2003 and my Outlook is trying to send an email that does not seem to exist. When opening up my Outbox there is no message in there, but my Outlook keeps trying to send an email, and failing. This is also stopping me from sending any other emails as they all get put into a queue and when the send fails, mine don't go out. Does anyone have any idea how to find and delete this phantom email? Thanks

• Answer:

  Sounds like you have a ghost email This is usually a Read receipt that outlook is trying to send, its a common problem If you have read receipts that won't send, try changing the SMTP server for the account to a server you can access and change it back to the one you normally use for the account. If they still won''t send, you can delete them from the data store by following these steps. Close Outlook, download and install OutlookSpy. http://www.dimastr.com/outspy/ Select the folder you need to delete a hidden item from. For Read Receipts, this is the top level of your message store (Outlook Today folder). After selecting the folder, click the IMsgStore button on the OutlookSpy toolbar. In the new window, click the Open Root Container button at the top left of the window to open a new window. Click the GetContents Table tab. The receipts are listed on the left. Select a receipt, choose Open entry button and a new window opens. Click on IMsgStore::Abort Submit. Click OK, close the window. Now choose Delete. Repeat for each receipt. Close all OutlookSpy windows when you are finished. Close Outlook and uninstall OutlookSpy.