Mail taking hours to send - no delay requested

Not sure if this is a problem inherent in Ventura 13.2.1 or an iCloud problem, but some of the emails I send are taking hours to reach the recipient, even though they immediately show in my Sent folder. When I resend the same email some time later, the recipient receives it and the original email within minutes of each other. I have never requested a "Send Delay" on any of these emails -- they are being delayed at random. In Settings, my "Send Delay" was on the auto setting of 10 seconds; I have just turned it off altogether. The delays I'm experiencing are way longer than 10 seconds. however. Any other advice? Is there a way to see if a message I think I've sent is just hanging out in the ether?

MacBook Air (M1, 2020)

Posted on Mar 13, 2023 05:28 AM

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3 replies

Mar 13, 2023 08:19 AM in response to rachkate

Email is not instant messaging. Email has no time of delivery associated with it or in the email protocol. Once the email leaves your client it passes through any number of relay servers to reach its destination. Any one of these relay servers could be experiencing speed issues for any of many possible reasons.

Maybe your second email was routed over different servers or networks which were not having any issues or were just faster.

To see if an email "is just hanging out in the ether", contact the recipient of the email and ask if they received it.

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Mail taking hours to send - no delay requested

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