Can I recover emails that hotmail received when I was over the storage limit

karl lindsell 0 Reputation points
2026-10-01T17:37:46.4066667+00:00

My Microsoft 365 subscription failed to automatically renew due to change of bank card. My outlook account was over the storage limits and I did not receive emails for about 10days until I changed my bank card details and resubscribed. The next emails to arrive in the outlook account are from the time after I had resubscribed. Can I recover the emails that did not arrive in teh period where I was not subscribed?

Outlook | Web | Outlook.com | Email
0 comments

1 answer

Sort by: Most helpful
Most helpful Newest Oldest

  1. AI answer

    2026-10-01T17:38:00.19+00:00

    No. Emails sent while the account was over quota are returned to the sender and are not held for later delivery. After storage is available again, those messages do not automatically appear in the mailbox.

    What can be done:

    1. Ask the senders to resend the missing emails.
    2. Check Junk Email, Deleted Items, and Archive in case any messages were delivered elsewhere.
    3. Confirm the account is now under both Microsoft cloud storage and mailbox storage limits.

    Relevant behavior for this scenario:

    • If Microsoft cloud storage is full, Outlook.com cannot send or receive email, even if the mailbox quota itself was not exceeded.
    • If email storage is full, Outlook.com also cannot send or receive email.
    • Messages sent during that period are bounced back to the sender and must be resent after storage is freed up or the subscription is restored.
    AI-generated content may be incorrect. Read our transparency notes for more information.

    Was this answer helpful?

Your answer

Answers can be marked as 'Accepted' by the question author and 'Recommended' by moderators, which helps users know the answer solved the author's problem.