E-mails in JIRA are not sent immediately when an operation is performed. Instead, they are placed in a mail queue, which JIRA empties periodically (every minute). This is very similar to the real-life scenario, where e-mails are placed in post boxes and picked up everyday.
Normally, you do not need to manage the mail queue. JIRA automatically places e-mails into the queue and flushes them periodically. However, as an administrator, there may be times when you wish to inspect the current queue and check if there are e-mails that are "stuck" and cannot be sent. E-mails can be stuck for a number of reasons. For example, if configured, SMTP mail server is not accessible. JIRA will automatically re-try.
Perform the following steps to view the mail queue and the mails it contains:
- Browse to the Mail section.
- Click on the Mail Queue tab to bring up the Mail Queue page:
This page provides you with a one-page view of the current e-mails in the queue waiting to be delivered. There are two queues, the main mail queue and the error queue.
The main mail queue contains all the e-mails that are pending to be delivered. If JIRA is able to successfully deliver the e-mails, they will be removed from the queue. Items listed in red indicate that JIRA has unsuccessfully attempted to send those e-mails. JIRA will re-try ten times, and if still unsuccessful, these items will be moved to the error queue.
The error queue contains e-mails that cannot be delivered by JIRA. You can choose to resend all the failed items in the error queue, or delete all of them.
While JIRA automatically flushes the mail queue, you can also manually flush the queue if the queue gets stuck or send out e-mails immediately. When you manually flush the queue, JIRA will try to send all the e-mails that are currently in the queue.
Perform the following steps to manually flush the mail queue:
- Browse to the Mail Queue page.
- Click on the Flush mail queue button.
If JIRA is successful in sending the e-mails, you will see the queue shrink and the items disappear. If some e-mails fail to be delivered, those items will be highlighted in red.