We've all been there, waiting to get an email and then panicking as the hours go by and it never comes. This situation may cause you to send a few emails asking for confirmation or even calling the person who sent the email, only to find out that they actually sent it. If your Microsoft Outlook is not receiving emails, there are numerous reasons why this might be happening and several solutions you can use to easily resolve the issue.
Why is Outlook not receiving emails?
If someone has sent an email to your Outlook.com, Live, or Hotmail account but you can't find it, the first thing to do is use the search bar at the top of the app to search for the specific email, contact who sent it, or the files contained in the email. If it does not appear on this list, you may be facing one of the following causes.
There is a network connection problem with your computer.
There is a system component that blocks incoming emails to Outlook.
The emails may be going to your spam folder instead of your inbox.
Your email account is not properly synced with Outlook.
The Outlook email client may be unavailable or the server may be down.
An Outlook add-in is conflicting with incoming emails.
Your email profile may be corrupted or configured incorrectly.
Your Outlook email client is configured to work offline.
Incorrect Outlook email login credentials have been entered into your account.
You can perform some advanced query searches to refine the results, which you can view here via the Microsoft support page. However, if you come across one of the above reasons and your Microsoft Outlook is not receiving emails, an advanced search is unlikely to help.
14 Proven Methods You Can Follow to Fix Outlook Not Receiving Emails Issue
It is important to note that Outlook not receiving email issue can occur in both Windows operating system, macOS and online version of Outlook. As a result, some of the steps below may look different to you, depending on the version of Outlook you're using. However, the general recommendations remain the same.
1. Restart Outlook
There is a reason that turning a piece of software or hardware off and on again works. Sometimes Outlook can crash, either because it's trying to process too much information or because conflicting programs may be running. As a result, this can cause Outlook to stop completely and not receive your emails. Try closing all programs on your computer, then close and reopen Outlook to see if emails start coming through.
2. Check your Internet connection
If your Internet connection is down, Outlook will not receive any email. You can check your internet status by looking at your WiFi or Ethernet connection. You can also see the status bar in Outlook. If the status bar says that you are in "working offline" mode, offline, or "trying to connect," this indicates that there is a problem with your connection.
We have published numerous troubleshooting articles related to Internet connection problems. Read the article from the list below that matches the issue you are experiencing and restore your network access in no time:
3. Check your offline work setting and disable it
If you are connected to the Internet, but your status bar says that you are in "work offline" mode, then this is the reason why you are not receiving any email in Outlook. "Work offline" mode disconnects you from the Outlook server, preventing you from receiving email.
To disable offline work mode:
Go to the Send/Receive tab at the top of Outlook.
Then click on the "work offline" mode in the preferences section.
4. Make sure your account credentials are set up correctly
If you're working with a new Outlook account that was just set up, verify that your account credentials are correct.
Go to your account settings.
Then check the email id and password to make sure these are the ones you originally signed up with.
5. Check your spam folder in Outlook
A common mistake people make is not checking their spam folder. This oversight usually occurs because you've previously received emails directly to your inbox, so it seems that checking spam would provide an unlikely find. However, sometimes emails get marked as spam, so please check again.
To check your spam:
Start Outlook.
In the folders section, click Junk Mail.
If you find the email missing from the spam folder, right click it to move it to your inbox.
Tell Outlook to trust emails from this sender.
6. Check if your inbox is full
This root issue is one of the most commonly overlooked causes of Outlook not receiving email issue. If your inbox is completely full, you won't have enough space for Outlook to receive more emails. The easiest way to fix this is to delete old or spam emails from your inbox or spam folders.
You can also use the Sweep feature in Outlook to set basic rules for handling your emails. An example would be using the sweep feature to automatically delete all incoming email from a particular sender after 10 days. There are many different ways to use swiping, so it's a good idea to check this feature out if you're constantly having trouble with large inboxes.
7. Check your "Other" folders in newer versions of Outlook
Newer versions of Outlook have two default folders in addition to your Inbox, the Focused and Other folders. Outlook will always prioritize emails flowing into the Focused folder. As a result, some emails may be grouped under Other.
Check the Other folder, and if you find the missing email, select it, right-click it, and move it to the Focused folder. You can also set it so that all emails from this particular sender are sent to the Focused folder.
8. Check your email rules
Have you configured any email rules to automate certain processes in Outlook? If you have a set of rules that works with received emails, this could be the reason why your Outlook is not receiving emails.
To check if you have any rules set, do the following:
First, go to your Outlook Settings.
Click on the Mail option.
Then choose Rules from the list.
Are there any rules in this section? If yes, find the rules that modify your incoming emails and remove or disable them for now.
9. Make sure the sender is not blocked
Another possible reason why your Outlook is not receiving emails is because the sender is actually blocked and thus your emails are automatically rejected.
You can check your block list and remove the sender by doing the following:
Click the Home tab at the top of Outlook.
Look for the little person icon with the locked symbol.
Click on it and choose the spam email options.
Go to the Blocked Senders tab.
Find the email address of the person you're expecting an email from.
Click on your email address, then click Delete on the right hand side.
Refresh your Outlook and wait a few minutes to see if the email arrives.
If you're in Outlook Online instead of the direct client:
Go to Settings, Mail, then Junk Email.
At the top of the window, you should see your blocked email addresses.
To the right of each email address, there will be a trash can that you can use to remove the address from the blocked list.
10. Clean Outlook cache:
If you have Outlook downloaded directly to your PC, the cached files might be interfering with regular Outlook operations. You can fix this problem manually by simply clearing cached Outlook files on your computer.
To clear Outlook cache, follow these steps:
In the search bar on your Windows computer, type "Run." Alternatively, press Windows Key + R to get the Run dialog box.
In the Run dialog box, type:
%localappdata%\Microsoft\Outlook
Press Enter and find the RoamCache folder.
Open the RoamCache folder and delete all cached files within it.
Restart Outlook and see if you get any new emails.
11. Reset your inbox filter:
If you've taken the time to prioritize your emails, you may have set up different filters on your inbox and spam folders. If this is the case, a filter may be the reason why your Outlook is not receiving emails.
To check the filters:
Just click on your inbox.
Then, in the upper right corner of the field, look for the word Filter.
Click on it and check the Unread option to reset the filter.
You can also sort your emails by subject, destination, origin, date, etc.
Enable automatic update of the inbox
For most email servers, there is an auto-refresh option that updates your inbox folder automatically in the background to give you real-time updates on when emails arrive.
If your Outlook isn't receiving emails, make sure this auto-update option is turned on. To do this, simply head over to the Send/Receive group settings and turn it on.
13. Disable all plugins:
If you are a fan of customizing your programs and you have done it with plug-ins for Outlook, this could be the main reason why your Outlook is not receiving emails. Add-ins, especially those that are not up to date, can cause problems with how Outlook works.
To find out if an add-in is causing the problem, run Outlook in safe mode to disable all add-ins. On the desktop client, you can run safe mode by doing the following:
In your computer's search menu, type "Run" or press Windows Key + R.
Type "Outlook.exe /safe" in the Run dialog box.
After pressing Enter, reload your Outlook to see if you start receiving mail.
14. Create a new profile and repair damaged .PST files:
If you have tried all the above methods and your Outlook is still not receiving emails, you may have a corrupted profile. At this point, we recommend that you create a new profile for Outlook to see if it fixes the problem.
If not, it indicates that your Outlook has a corrupt .PST file that needs to be repaired using the Outlook Inbox Repair Tool called ScanPST.exe, which is located in your Outlook installation directory.
To create a new profile, do the following:
Start your Outlook and go to your Account Settings.
From there, choose Manage Profiles.
You can see the current Outlook profiles by pressing Show.
On the profiles screen, click the Add button.
Enter a name for your profile and follow the instructions on the screen.
Tell Outlook to always use this new profile and press Apply.
Finally, restart Outlook and see if you start receiving emails on your new profile.