Sending mail in Apple Mail while offline

[newmaclover]

Does anyone know if it is possible to send email with Apple Mail while the mailboxes are offline? Before I upgraded to Lion it would sometimes put emails in the outbox; other times it would send email right away. Any idea on how to set it to send email right away? Can Thunderbird or Outlook do this?

Thanks!

 

[miles01110]

To send an e-mail right away you click the "Send" button. If it's going to the outbox there must be a problem contacting the mail server for that particular account.

 

[newmaclover]

I've found that if you set Mail to OFFLINE, close mail, then restart it (it will still be in offline mode), Mail will send mail immediately and NOT fetch new mail. This is the functionality I was looking for.

Thank you.