What Is an Outbox?

Written by Clean Email Team
Reviewed by Julia Furkulitsa
Reviewed byJulia Furkulitsa

Julia Furkulitsa is an email expert with in-depth knowledge of inbox management, email apps, and everyday email tasks. She brings deep expertise built on years of focused work in the email space.

Tested by Alexa Shahan
Tested byAlexa Shahan

Alexa Shahan is a tech and productivity expert with a strong focus on email tools. She tests each app and verifies every guide to ensure it’s easy to follow and truly helpful to users.

Definition

💡 An Outbox is a temporary storage folder in an email client where outgoing emails are held until they are successfully sent to the recipient. It serves as an intermediary stage between composing and sending emails, ensuring that messages are properly queued and delivered.

Example

When you compose an email in Outlook and click send, the email first moves to the outbox. It remains there briefly while Outlook processes and sends the message. If there is an issue with sending, such as a connection error, the email stays in the outbox until it can be successfully sent.

The Outbox folder in OutlookThe Outbox folder in Outlook

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