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Email Problems: Sending Multiple Email Copies Accidentally

Reader Ginny K. wrote about accidentally sending multiple copies of large emails:

Hi Terry:

Have been having a couple of problems lately. 1. When I send attachments, usually in pps form, they are received numerous times. Also, I was just informed that when I sent a link to an email buddy, they received it the email twice, which has never happened before. 2. I am using Outlook express and just in the last couple of days, I have received numerous messages saying that IE has encountered a problem and needs to close. I did a system restore - did it twice - and right now things seem to be ok; but I never know. That same message came back after the first system restore and that is why I did it the second time.

Any info on this would be greatly appreciated

Thank you
Ginny K.

Unknowingly and accidentally sending duplicate emails is almost always a situation of your software or internet connection messing up. If you have a dialup connection, a noisy phone connection could cause it.

Basically, what happens is:

1. your email program tells the remote mail server that it wants to send an email
2. the mailserver says "ok, send it"
3. your email program sends it
4. your email program waits for an acknowledgement that the mailserver received the email correctly
5. the mailserver checks whether it received the email correctly - if yes, it confirms to your email program. -- if no, it tells your program to send (at least some of) the data again
6. when your email program receives the confirmation that the email was received correctly, your email program moves the email from the Outbox to the Sent folder
7. If anything happens to prevent that confirmation being received, your email program will send the message again.

So, you see, a communications bobble can cause a duplicate email to be sent.

Copyright © 2009 Terry A. Stockdale. All rights reserved.