Split from this thread.

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You asked whether you can remove the outbox. The answer is No, you can't, because it's one vital stage on a message's way to the intended recipient. All messages you send go to the outbox. How long they stay there depends on your settings. Most users optto Send messages immediately, so if everything is working as it should, you won't notice the message in the outbox because it will only be there for a second or two.  

In your case, something is causing a problem with passing messages from the outbox to your ISP's mail server. There are any number of reasons why this might happen, but there will normally be an error message to indicate where the problem lies. To troubleshoot, then:

1. Click Work offline. This will release the program's handle on any message it's trying to send.
2. Click on Outbox in the folder pane, then remove any unsent messages from it. Make sure that you can see all messages: on the View tab, click Filter messages and select Show all messages.
3. Start a new mail message (Ctrl-N) and address it to yourself. Give it a meaningful subject like Test 1 so that you can distinguish it from other test messages that you might have to send. Write a few words in the body of the message. If you have more than one account, check that the right one is showing in the From box to the right of the To... box.
4. Click Send. You will of course have to click Go online to be able to connect to your ISP.

What happens?

• If you see an error message, please click on it to select it, then use right-click to copy it and paste it into your reply here.
• If you don't see an error message, do you see Error  in the bottom right-hand corner of the window? Click on it to open the send/receive progress window. Error messages will be on the Errors tab.

When viewing your message list, press Ctrl-Shift-O for Options. You'll find this one on the Send tab.

Look here for the outbox:

I followed the steps above and here's the message that I received...................................................

The connection to the server has failed.

Subject 'test2'
Server: 'smtp.charter.net'
Windows Live Mail Error ID: 0x800CCC0E
Protocol: SMTP
Port: 25
Secure(SSL): No
Socket Error: 10060

The problem began after I'd been using POP3 for years so WLM support said that I should be using IMAP but it didn't help; it hasn't worked for 4-5 months now.