Not receiving some emails on Outlook Client/Outlook online

Question

Not receiving some emails on Outlook Client/Outlook online

Tim091 0

For about the past two weeks I have been aware that I am not receiving some emails sent to my .live.co.uk account

These are from different people but the ones that I know about are all people I regularly correspond with/get mails from. They include Amazon, my wife and my son and my son's school. There are probably others that I don't know about.

I have checked Junk and Deleted Items.

I have no Rules running.

I am not using Focused Inbox.

I have 14Gb of the 15Gb storage free.

I have added my wife, my son, Amazon, my son's school to Safe Senders (although I shouldn't need to).

My wife and Son are in my contacts and I have "trust email from my contacts" selected.

About a week ago I looked at the "Recover items deleted from this folder" link in the Deleted Items folder and found some of the missing mails there. They had never been received in my Inbox or even moved to Deleted. They had just gone straight to full delete.

However, that doesn't seem to be happening now.

This evening I received an email from my wife. Ten minutes later she sent me another and I didn't get it. No bounce back for her.

Today I checked with Amazon and they sent a test email which I didn't get. They sent another and I did get it.

I just ordered some food from Just Eat and didn't get an order confirmation email, nor a Paypal email.

I am receiving some emails. I can send and receive to myself okay from this email address.

I need a resolution to this quickly as I have no idea how many other mails I am not getting!

Any ideas welcome!

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2 answers

Your answer

Answer 1

Hi Tim091,

I can understand why this is concerning, especially when there may be other missing messages that you are not yet aware of.

Since the same messages are missing in both Outlook for Windows and Outlook.com, reinstalling or repairing the Outlook client is unlikely to address the underlying issue. The most significant detail is that some earlier messages appeared under Recover items deleted from this folder. This suggests that those messages may have reached the mailbox and were then deleted or moved, rather than simply failing to arrive.

Please check whether this account is also connected to any other device, built-in mail app, desktop email program, or third-party service. If it is, temporarily sign out of or disconnect those connections and then ask your wife to send another test message. It would also be worth reviewing your Microsoft account’s recent sign-in activity for any device or session you do not recognize.

For any recent missing messages, check Deleted Items > Recover items deleted from this folder again and note the sender, subject, and approximate sending time. Those details will be useful if Microsoft Support needs to investigate the mailbox.

Because the issue is intermittent and affects Outlook.com itself, further investigation may require mailbox-side information that cannot be accessed through this user-to-user forum. If another test message goes missing, I recommend contacting Microsoft Support while you have the exact sender and timestamp available: Contact Microsoft Support

When speaking with Support, clearly explain that some messages from the same sender arrive while others do not, no non-delivery report is generated, and previously missing messages were found in Recoverable Items. This should help distinguish a delivery failure from messages being removed after delivery. Thank you so much for your understanding.

Note: Please follow the steps in our documentation to enable e-mail notifications if you want to receive the related email notification for this thread.

Tim091 0 Reputation points

2026-11-07T14:28:14.1466667+00:00

Hi thanks for the reply. I have removed the account from the mail client on my phone and am now using the online Outlook access only, to eliminate any third-party complications.

I have checked sign-in activity and there is only my correct sign-ins.

My wife has just sent a message and I received it okay, but that also happened yesterday when I had not received her first one but did the second.

She sent a second and I didn't get it but have just found it in Recover Items.

The only other thing that may be of relevance is that I have had an enormous ramp up in the amount of spam I am receiving in the last few months. I get approximately 100 per day.

Answer 2

Since some messages arrive and others do not, and the issue appears in both Outlook client and Outlook.com, this points to a mailbox-side filtering or delivery issue rather than an Outlook reinstall issue.

Work through these checks in Outlook.com first:

Check mailbox storage
- If Microsoft cloud storage is full, Outlook.com cannot send or receive email.
- Messages sent while storage was full are bounced back to the sender and are unrecoverable.
- Check mailbox storage and confirm it is not full.
Check all message locations
- Check Junk Email, Deleted Items, Archive, Other, and any custom folders.
- In the message list, set Filter > Sort > Date so messages are shown in chronological order.
Recheck forwarding and rules
- Confirm email forwarding is disabled.
- Recheck that there are no rules preventing messages from appearing.
Review Junk Email behavior
- Check Junk Email settings and the Junk Email folder.
- If a message is found there, mark it as Not junk or move it back to Inbox.
- Messages in Junk Email are automatically removed after 30 days and are not recoverable.
Check account security state
- If the password was changed recently, update it everywhere the account is used.
- Review recent sign-in activity for unusual access. If the account was temporarily blocked because of unusual sign-in activity, it may need to be unblocked.
Ask affected senders whether they receive a non-delivery report
- This is important because some sender-side authentication failures can cause Outlook.com to reject mail before it reaches the mailbox.
- If a sender gets a rejection, the sender must correct their mail authentication or send from a different address temporarily.
- Adding a sender to Safe Senders may not help if the message is blocked before delivery.
If using connected third-party mail apps
- If a third-party mail service is connected, it must support modern authentication and IMAP.
- If IMAP or POP are active, disable them and test again, because they can cause issues with connected apps.
If messages are still intermittently missing
- Open Outlook.com while signed in.
- Select Help.
- Enter the query.
- Scroll to Still need help? and select Yes.
- If the Help pane does not open from support page buttons, sign in to Outlook.com first, then select the ? at the top of the Outlook.com window.

Based on the symptoms described, the highest-value checks are: storage, all folders including Other and Archive, forwarding/rules, recent sign-in activity, and sender non-delivery reports. The fact that some messages from the same sender arrive and others do not also makes sender-side rejection details especially important.