In order to save resources, the system stores emails that are unable to deliver as frozen mail when trying to process email delivery.

Here at Ibmi Media, as part of our Server Management Services, we regularly help our Customers to perform related Exim queries.

In this context, we shall look into how to resolve frozen email messages error.

Exim message is frozen

Frozen mails are the emails which are sent to invalid email address.

Suppose an email address is not valid or real. An attempt to send an email to that address will be known as frozen mail.

If the email does not deliver to the account, it will add to the queue and Exim will try twice to deliver the email based on the settings in the retry configuration in the Exim conf file.

If the recipient does not subsist after the predefined days in Exim conf, those emails will be stored as frozen mails.

Exim Mail Server

Exim is a mail transfer agent on UNIX. A rapidly growing mail server, it handles mails for users daily.

Steps to Use Exim Server:

• Deploy Exim as SMTP E-Mail server.
• Configure a reliable mail service to meet needs.
• Manage the system operations of mail.
• Save messages to files.
• Tune the server to optimize performance.
• Handle several domains for large organizations.
• Finally, secure the mail system to maintain the confidentiality of messages.

How to clear All Frozen E-Mails from the Mail Queue?

Suppose, an email is unable to deliver even after several attempts. This email will store under frozen mail.

Several Frozen messages in Mail Queue Manager intend us to examine the log file. Thereby, find the cause and solution to the issue:

/var/log/exim-mainlog

There are certain emails within the mail queue.

Let us see what we need to find:

• Initially, we select checkboxes for the email to send.
• Then we click Deliver Selected.
• We can refer to the delivery report under Delivering Messages to find out the attempts of mail.

How to Deliver Mail within Mail Queue ?

In order to deliver Mail within the mail queue we follow the below steps:

• First, we click Deliver All.
• In the new window, we click OK to confirm that we chose to deliver emails within the queue.
• Then if we check the delivery report under the Delivering Messages in Queue, we can find the successful attempts.

How to Delete E-Mail In Queue ?

• Initially, we select Delete All from the table.
• Then we click OK to confirm to delete emails in the queue.

How to View Queued Mails on Server ?

• If we know the subject, we enter it in the search field.
• In the Select Query menu, choose from search Sender, Search Recipient, Search Message-ID.
• Then choose the function in the Search Type.
• Eventually, check at the Start and End date fields to find the delivery time of emails.

Different methods to Remove Frozen Mails ?

Generally, we have two methods to remove all frozen emails from Exim Mail Server,

1. Exim-bp command

# exim –bp | grep frozen | awk ‘{print $3}’ |xargs exim -Mrm

2. Exiqgrep command

# exiqgrep –iz | xargs exim –Mrm

[Need help with fixing SMTP issues? We'd be happy to assist. ]