Problems with sending mail from Excel

Important message to visitors of this page

Ron de Bruin decided to remove all Windows Excel content from his website for personal reasons. If you want to know why, head over to rondebruin.nl.

Luckily, Ron was kind enough to allow me to publish all of his Excel content here.

Most of these pages are slightly outdated and may contain links that don 't work. Please inform me if you find such an error and I'll try to fix it.

Kind regards

Jan Karel Pieterse

Excel can't find or use the wrong mail program

Close Excel first and check out if Outlook or Outlook Express/Windows Mail is your mail program for Office.
Start>Settings>Control Panel....Internet options (Program Tab)
In Vista/Win7 : Start>Default programs

Excel could not start the E-mail program error

If your Excel version is not the same as your Outlook version and you use Send To...Mail recipient or use the E-Mail button on the Standard toolbar you get this error :

<Excel could not start the E-mail program>

The Outlook version and the Office version must be the same to send in the body of the mail.
Note: as a workaround you can use the Outlook Body macro examples on my site

General mail failure error

When you get a "General mail failure" error or have other problems then first run Office Diagnostics in 2007 : Office Button>Excel Options...Resources. In 2010-2016 run Office setup again to repair Office.

Controls to send mail are missing or disabled

Excel 2007-2016

Where is the Send to Mail Recipient option in Excel 2007-2016?
Microsoft hide it but you can add this option to the QAT like this:

1) Office Button > Excel Options or File > Options
2) Customize or Quick Access Toolbar
3) Choose "Commands Not in the Ribbon" in the "Choose Commands from" list
4) Select the command named "Send to mail recipient"
5) Add
6) OK

Excel 2003 and up

For Office 2003 and up see this Kb first to check if you registry values are correct.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/834008

Office 2003 and up only uses the registry for MAPI information.

Excel 97-2002

This behavior may occur when the following entry is missing from the [Mail] section of
the Win.ini system file: MAPIX=1

How do I add the MAPIX=1 entry to the Win.ini file ?

1) Click Start>Run.
2) In the Open box, type Sysedit, and then click OK.
3) In System Configuration Editor, click the title bar of the drive:\WINDOWS\WIN.INI window.
4) Under [Mail], type a new line that reads MAPIX=1, and then press ENTER.
5) On the File menu, click Exit and save the win.ini file.
6) Open Excel and see if it is working now.

Note:
If it is not possible to edit/save the win.ini file in the sysedit window because of the security settings.
Browse to C:\Windows and copy the win.ini file on your desktop and edit/save it there and copy it back to C:\Windows.

All Excel versions

If your register and win.ini file is OK and controls to send mail in Excel are still missing or disabled then try to rename your .xlb file. Reason: Maybe you have a corrupt or bloated xlb file *normal* size is < 30 kb.
The .xlb file has all Toolbar customization in it.

1) Close Excel
2) Do a search for .xlb in Windows (Use: search hidden files and folders)
3) Rename or delete the .xlb file or files (In 2002 the name = Excel10.xlb)
4) Start Excel

Deleting the file or renaming will do no harm to your system
Excel will create a new file for you. (You lost your customization remember that)
If you make your own toolbars or add buttons to the others
this file is important (backup it so you can restore it)

Ron de BruinExcel Automation