Unable to send emails

Question

My hotmail is stating that I have no storage space. I cleared out my cloud storage, cleared my emails, cloud storage is now at 0.2GB and it is still stating 'Out of storage space'. I have bought more storage space so that should not be an issue, so what can I do?

Answer 1

Hi Angela Lothian

Thanks for your post. I understand how frustrating it is when you’ve already cleaned up storage and even purchased more space, but Outlook.com still won’t let you send emails. Please try the following:

1, Empty hidden mailbox folders (Recoverable Items)

Even if Deleted Items looks empty, Outlook.com still counts hidden folders.

• Go to Outlook on the web
• Right‑click “Deleted Items” > select “Empty folder”
• Do the same for “Junk Email”
• Sign out of Outlook.com completely, then sign back in and try sending again

2, Check storage from the Microsoft account page (not Outlook settings)

Sometimes Outlook settings lag behind account storage status.

• Open https://account.microsoft.com/services and login
• Confirm Total storage used is clearly below your new limit (not just OneDrive alone)
• If it shows updated correctly, sign out of all Outlook sessions and sign in again

3, Use Outlook.com in a private browser window

This is a quick way to rule out cached storage state.

• Open a Private / InPrivate browser window
• Sign in to Outlook on the web
• Try sending a short test email

If this works, clearing browser cache for Outlook.com should resolve it long‑term.

Please feel free to let me know how it goes after trying these steps. Thank you so much for your time and understanding.

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Answer 2

When did you clean and free up storage space?

There may be a delay of up to 24 hours for the storage to be updated.