Answer by WilliamD

@NaveenK - Have you checked how many entries are in the `msdb.dbo.sysmail_mailitems` table? I suspect you have a lot of entries in there which could be slowing down the process of reading/processing them. You can use the stored procedure `sysmail_delete_mailitems_sp` to clean up old email items that are filling this table. You run it like this: EXEC sysmail_delete_mailitems_sp @sent_before = '2011-01-01' , -- enter a date that suits you. @sent_status = 'sent' -- possible values = sent, unsent, retrying, failed