Why am I not receiving email?

How do I find out where my email went?

1. Check Junk or Spam. Look in webmail and in your phone or Outlook. If the message is there, move it to the inbox and trust the sender. See good emails landing in junk.
2. Check your mailbox space. On Microsoft 365 or Google, a full mailbox sends new mail back with a “mailbox full” or “over quota” bounce. E-3’s own mail server has no mailbox size limit, so on E-3 email that bounce shouldn’t happen; if it does, call us. See mailbox full.
3. Ask if it’s one sender or everyone. If others reach you fine, ask that sender to forward the “Undeliverable” or “Delivery Status Notification” message they got. It names the reason.
4. Sign in to webmail in a browser. For E-3 email that’s https://mail.e3webmail.com, as in SmarterTools’ logging in guide. If the message is in webmail but not on your device, the device needs fixing. See set up email on your phone or Outlook and Apple Mail.
5. Look at rules and forwarding. A rule may be moving or deleting messages, or forwarding may be sending them elsewhere. Microsoft lists both among the first checks in its sync troubleshooting guide.
6. Check other tabs and folders. Outlook’s Other tab and Gmail’s Promotions and Updates tabs hide plenty of mail. Search all folders for the sender’s name.

Expected result: you either find the message, or you know whether the problem is one device, one sender, or the whole mailbox.

Most cases are solved by step 4.

The short version

• Look in Junk in webmail and on your phone. If mail is in webmail but not your phone, it’s the phone.
• Nobody getting mail, or a recent website, domain or DNS change? Call for help now.

Why does this matter?

Email that silently stops is worse than email that’s slow. Customers, suppliers and website leads assume you got their message. The sooner you narrow it to one of the cases above, the sooner the right person can fix it.

What are the common mistakes and edge cases?

• Nobody at the business gets email. This is bigger than one mailbox. A change somewhere else can cause it: a website moved to a new host, a domain moved registrars, or DNS records edited. The records that tell the world where your mail goes (MX records) can be lost in those moves. A mailbox can also be removed or changed during that kind of work.
• Your domain expired. If the registration lapses, email stops along with the website. See domain renewal notices.
• You changed your password. Every phone and computer holding the old one stops collecting mail. Update it on each. See reset your email password.
• Mail shows on one device only. That usually means the device uses POP, which downloads mail to one place. Don’t delete that account to fix it. Mail may exist only there. Ask for help first.
• You blocked the sender once. Check your blocked senders list in Outlook or webmail. In SmarterMail webmail it’s in your spam filtering settings, as SmarterTools’ My Spam Filtering guide describes; screens can vary by version.
• Large attachments. Some services refuse very large messages. Ask the sender for a file-sharing link instead.

What if this didn’t work?

• It isn’t in webmail and there’s no bounce. A filter may have held it before it reached your mailbox. Your email provider can search its logs with the sender’s address and the time it was sent.
• Only some people at your business are affected. Compare them: an old saved password on a device is the usual difference (or, on Microsoft 365 or Google, a full mailbox).
• It started right after a change. Tell whoever made the change. Don’t edit DNS yourself to try to fix it. A wrong record can make things worse.

If your iPhone is the only thing not getting mail, Apple’s guide to receiving email problems suggests checking Settings, Apps, Mail, Mail Accounts, then Fetch New Data.

A bounce is the best clue anyone has. Microsoft’s nondelivery report guide lists the codes, and our guide to why emails bounce explains the common ones in plain English.

How does E-3 handle this?

Work through the first four checks first. They solve most cases. Then contact us, and call rather than email if your email is down:

• Right away if nobody at your business is getting email, or if your website, domain or DNS changed recently.
• With a bounce if one sender can’t reach you. Send us its error code and explanation line, not the whole bounce, which can hold other people’s addresses.

Tell us your email address, when it started, and one example sender with the rough time they sent. Before any change to your domain’s mail records, E-3 saves the existing DNS records.

Phone 814-399-4655, write to support@e3help.me, or use the Get support form. Never include your password.

Related questions

• Why can’t I send email, or why do my messages bounce?
• My mailbox is full. How do I free up space?
• Is my work email on SmarterMail?