Lead Stuck in "Ready" Status
A lead showing "Ready" means the email has been generated and is in the send queue — but the email hasn't gone out yet. Here's how to diagnose why and what to do about it.
First: understand what "Ready" means
"Ready" is a normal intermediate state. It means Swokei has finished analyzing the website and writing the email. The lead is now waiting for its scheduled send slot. Swokei doesn't blast all emails at once — it spreads sends throughout the day based on the mailbox's daily sending limit.
If you just launched a campaign, Ready leads are expected to sit for a few hours before they're sent. Check the Sending Calendar (in the sidebar) — click on today's date to see the full schedule. If your leads are listed there, they're scheduled and will send at the allocated time. Most Ready leads send within the same business day. This is normal — no action needed.
But the lead has been "Ready" for more than 24 hours
If a lead hasn't moved out of Ready after a full day, something is blocking the send. Work through these checks:
Check 1: Is the campaign paused?
Open the campaign from the Campaigns list. Look at the status badge at the top. If it shows "Paused" in yellow or grey, that's why nothing is sending. Click the green "Resume" button. Sending restarts immediately and Ready leads will begin going out.
Check 2: Is the sending mailbox disconnected?
In the sidebar, click "Mailboxes". Look at the mailbox used for this campaign. If it shows a red warning badge or a yellow icon instead of a green "Connected" badge, the connection is broken.
Click on that mailbox to open its settings drawer. You'll see an error message explaining what went wrong. Click the "Re-authorize" button, complete the OAuth or SMTP flow to re-authenticate, and the badge turns green. Once reconnected, return to your campaign and verify it's still running (not paused) — Ready leads will start going out within the next send cycle.
Check 3: Has the mailbox's daily sending limit been hit?
Email providers cap how many emails can be sent per day. If you launched a campaign with more leads than the mailbox can send in a day, today's quota may already be used up. Sending automatically resumes the next day.
To check: open the Sending Calendar, navigate to today, and look at how many sends are shown. If the count matches or exceeds your mailbox's daily limit, this is the cause. Tomorrow's date should already show scheduled sends picking up the overflow.
Check 4: Was the lead manually paused?
Individual leads within a campaign can be manually paused (useful when you're in a live conversation with someone and don't want automated follow-ups going out). If a specific lead is paused at the individual level, it won't move out of Ready even if the campaign is running.
To check and fix this:
- Open the campaign and find the stuck lead in the lead table.
- Click on the lead row to expand its detail panel.
- Look for a "Paused" indicator or a "Resume follow-ups" button in the panel.
- If you see "Resume follow-ups", click it. The lead re-enters the active send queue.
Check 5: Is there a silent mailbox error?
Occasionally a mailbox shows "Connected" in the badge but has a token issue that only surfaces when actually trying to send. The mailbox looks fine but fails silently.
To rule this out: click the mailbox in the Mailboxes list, open its settings drawer, and click "Re-authorize" even if it looks connected. This refreshes the authentication token. It only takes 30 seconds and often resolves intermittent sending issues that aren't reflected in the UI.
Check 6: Look in Analysis history
In the sidebar, click "Analysis history". This shows every background task Swokei has attempted. Filter or search for the campaign name or the mailbox email address. Look for any failed send tasks with an error message for that specific lead. The error message usually makes the cause obvious (e.g. "Rate limit exceeded", "Authentication failure", "Invalid recipient address").
Manual send triggers and scheduled sending
Sends are managed by Swokei's scheduler based on your mailbox's daily limits and sending times. You cannot manually trigger an immediate send for a Ready lead — the scheduler controls the flow. If a lead is stuck in Ready and you've verified the mailbox is connected and has capacity remaining, pause and resume the campaign to reset the scheduler queue. This usually triggers stuck leads to be picked up in the next sending cycle. The most common reasons leads stay stuck are hitting the mailbox's daily sending limit (check the Mailboxes section for the provider's daily cap and compare it to how many have been sent today), the campaign being paused at some point, or the mailbox losing connection.