Excel 2016 – General Mail Failure Error

This post was originally published on June 18, 2018
The latest update to this post was made 6 years ago.

Excel 2016 – General Mail Failure Error

Issue
With the 1709 Creator Update or later update for Windows 10 applied, Excel 2016 starts throwing a ‘General Mail Failure.  Quit Microsoft Excel, Restart The Mail System And Try Again’ error message.

Resolution

• Close Outlook and Excel
• Delete (or rename) the file msmapi32.dll from C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\System\MSMAPI\xxxx where xxxx is a language code of your Office installation.  NOTE: U.S.A. is typically 1033.
• Restart Outlook and Excel
• You should now be able to send email like normal from Excel 2016.  The MSMAPI32.DLL will automatically re-appear in the folder above.

Tags: #excel #windows10 #techsupport #office