Not receiving emails. Please HELP!!!!!!!

Question

I'm not currently receiving all my emails. For the past 2 weeks, there have been portions of the day when I don't receive emails, which is highly uncommon. Then, after 24-48 hours, I'll check my inbox, and I'll have days' worth of emails that did not show until now. I'm using Outlook and have the app on my phone and web browser on my computer, and it's the same. My wife has CC'd me on multiple emails that are not coming through, but if she sends me a direct email, it does. I need help, and I cannot keep not receiving email for my job.

Answer 1

Hi, Chase Still

Because the delay appears in both the phone app and browser, Outlook itself is probably displaying messages only after the mail system finally delivers them. The difference between direct and CC messages may also indicate that the sender is selecting an outdated or incorrect saved address.

Here are some suggestions you can try:

Ask your wife to start a completely new message, remove your saved suggestion from the CC field, and manually type your full email address. Outlook can retain previously used addresses in its recipient suggestions.

When a delayed message finally arrives, open it in Outlook on the web, select More actions (...) > View > View message details, then save the full header. The “Received” entries show which mail server held the message and where the delay occurred.

If this is a Microsoft 365 work account, contact your company’s email administrator and provide two or three affected examples, including sender, recipient, subject, and approximate sending time. Ask them to run Exchange admin center > Mail flow > Message trace. Message trace can show whether each message was received, deferred, rejected, or delivered by Microsoft 365.

These tests should clearly separate a sender-address problem from an Exchange delivery delay.

Thank you for your patience in reading, I hope this information has been helpful to you. 

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Answer 2

Since the delay happens in the phone app and in Outlook on the web, this is likely a mailbox-side issue rather than an Outlook app installation issue.

Work through these checks in Outlook.com first:

1. Check storage capacity
   • If Microsoft cloud storage is full, mail cannot be sent or received.
   • Messages sent while storage was full can bounce back to the sender and are unrecoverable.
   • Check mailbox storage and confirm it is not full.
2. Check where messages may be landing
   • Open the Junk Email, Deleted Items, Archive, and any custom folders.
   • If Focused Inbox is enabled, check the Other tab.
   • If messages are out of order, set Filter > Sort > Date.
3. Check rules and forwarding
   • In Outlook.com settings, review Mail > Rules.
   • Remove any rule that moves, deletes, or redirects incoming mail.
   • Check whether email forwarding is enabled and turn it off if it should not be active.
4. Check junk settings and blocked senders
   • Review Junk Email settings and the Junk Email folder.
   • If valid messages were marked as junk, move them back and mark them as not junk.
   • Review blocked senders and remove any sender that should be allowed.
5. Test with the affected scenario
   • Ask the sender to send a new test message where the account is CC'd, since that is the pattern failing.
   • Also ask whether the sender receives any non-delivery report or bounce message.
   • If the message appears nowhere in Inbox, Junk, Archive, Deleted Items, Other, or custom folders, that points to a delivery issue rather than a client sync issue.
6. If one device has a sync problem
   • If only one device stops updating, removing the partnership between that mobile device and the mailbox can fix sync issues.
   • In this case, because the issue appears in both the phone app and web, reinstalling Outlook is unlikely to fix it.
7. Escalate through Outlook.com support if the checks above do not find the missing mail
   • In Outlook.com, select the Help icon.
   • Search for cannot receive emails.
   • Scroll to Still need help? and select Yes.
   • Choose Chat with a support agent in your web browser.
   • Provide the approximate date the issue started, examples of affected senders, and whether those senders received any bounce message.

The most relevant checks for this case are Rules, Forwarding, Junk/Blocked senders, Other tab, and storage. Since direct mail arrives but some CC'd mail does not, testing with fresh CC messages and checking whether they are being redirected or filtered is the fastest way to narrow it down.

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