What is the difference between Outbox and Sent?

Outbox and Sent are both terms used in e-mail systems like Gmail. Both refers to where your composed messages or emails are stored. However, both Outbox and Sent are not totally the same. Outbox is like a temporary box holding all messages or emails to be sent out. When you compose a message, and you send it, it first moves to the outbox waiting for the recipient to connect to the internet and then receive the mail. All the mails that do not get to the recipient are stored in the outbox.

Sent, on the other hand, refers to a folder where all the messages that are successfully delivered are stored. So, immediately, the mail gets to the recipient; it moves straight into the sent folder. Outbox messages can still be reviewed to know if there are changes you would like to make; they can be re-edited. Outbox messages can also be deleted; in case you no longer want it to be sent. However, once it moves into the sent folder, it means the message has been received by the recipient, and as such, it can no longer be re-edited.

Outbox and sent are folders you will see in an email. They are different folders and they serve different purposes. Outbox is a temporary folder that holds outgoing messages. Messages are stored in the outbox until an internet connection is established between the sender and the mail server. As soon as a connection is established, the message is sent to the recipient and the message leaves the outbox folder.

Sent folder, on the other hand, is a folder where all messages or emails that have been successfully delivered to the recipient are stored. They do not store pending messages like outbox folder. This helps users to keep track of emails that have been successfully delivered for future purposes. Hope you find this information useful.

The outbox is a temporary holding area where outgoing messages are stored. Once the most recent e-mail client establishes a connection with the mail server and the recipient successfully receives your message it will leave the outbox. When you type in a message and then hit send, the outgoing message moves to the outbox until a secure connection with the systematized SMTP server is accessible and effectively established.

The sent folder procures the sent messages which are being successfully obtained by the recipient. The sent folder stores all the e-mails which are successfully delivered and received, while the e-mails remain in the outbox until they are successfully delivered. Sent allows you to keep track of your already delivered mail.

You may be feeling a bit confused with the Outbox and sent folder because they may seem the same. The Outbox is known to be the area where messages are stored temporarily. When you create a message, and you would like to send the message, the message will first be placed in the Outbox before it will be received by the recipient.

The moment that the message is received by the recipient, the message will automatically go to the Sent folder. The messages will not be available in the outbox folder anymore. The process that the messages go through to go to the Outbox or the Sent folder is also different from each other.

You may think that outbox and sent are the same but these are two different places where mail can be placed. Outbox is the place where the mail is when you have sent it but it is still waiting to be sent. If in case the message fails to deliver, it will also be placed in the outbox. The sent folder is the place wherein the successful messages that you have sent are placed.

You can always double-check if the message has been sent especially if you are awaiting the reply of the person that you have sent the message to. An Outbox is usually a temporary place for the messages while the sent folder will contain all of the messages that you have sent during the past days. You can control how long the copy of the messages will stay in your chosen folders.