Outlook.com stopped receiving external emails since 18 July unless sender/domain is added to Safe Senders

Question

My Outlook.com/Hotmail account stopped receiving external emails on 18 July 2026.

I have already verified all of the following:

• Mailbox storage is not full.
• No inbox rules.
• No forwarding.
• Blocked senders list is empty.
• Junk Email protection is set to Standard.
• The issue occurs on Outlook Web, Windows, and iPhone.

Internal emails sent from the Hotmail account to itself are delivered successfully.

External emails never appear in Inbox, Junk, Archive or Deleted Items, and the senders do not receive a bounce message.

The only workaround I found is that if I add a sender or an entire domain to Safe Senders, those emails are delivered immediately.

This appears to be an Outlook.com server-side inbound filtering issue rather than a client or settings issue.

Could a Microsoft moderator please review this account and advise how this can be escalated for investigation?

Answer 1

Hi Hemanth Muddappa,

I understand that external messages have stopped reaching your Outlook.com mailbox unless the sender or domain is added to Safe Senders, even though you have already checked the relevant mailbox settings and reproduced the behavior across multiple devices.

Please note that this is a user-to-user forum, so contributors cannot access your mailbox or trace how individual incoming messages are being processed. Since the usual mailbox checks have already been completed and the behavior also occurs in Outlook.com on the web, further client-side troubleshooting would likely repeat what you have already tried.

Please contact Outlook.com support so the affected account and its inbound mail handling can be reviewed:

1. Sign in to Outlook.com.
2. Select the Help icon, shown as a question mark, in the upper-right corner.
3. In the Help pane, search for “email management”, then press Enter.
4. Scroll to Still need help? and select Yes.
5. Choose Chat with a support agent in your web browser, if that option appears.
6. Review the issue description and confirm an email address that you can access.
7. Select Confirm to submit the service request and connect to Outlook.com support.

When describing the issue, mention that external messages are absent from all folders, senders receive no bounce message, and delivery begins immediately after the sender or domain is added to Safe Senders. If possible, provide the dates, approximate times, sender domains, and subjects of a few recent missing test messages, but do not post complete email addresses or other private information publicly.

The in-product support route is the documented method for obtaining help when Outlook.com self-help does not resolve the issue: How to get support for Outlook.com.

I hope Outlook.com support can identify why messages from senders outside the Safe Senders list are not reaching the mailbox.