cannot receive messages in Outlook.com

Question

cannot receive messages in Outlook.com

GERALD DURKOP 0

I have not been able to receive email messages in Outlook since 25 September.

John Jefferson Doyon 89,540 Reputation points Independent Advisor

2026-10-10T18:55:46.5833333+00:00
Hi, @GERALD DURKOP

To help narrow down the issue:

Can you still send emails from the Outlook account?

If you send a test email to the Outlook address from another account, does the sender receive any bounce-back or delivery failure message?

Have you checked whether your Outlook.com mailbox storage is full at https://outlook.live.com/mail/0/options/general/storage?

Any additional info about the issue you can provide will be helpful in diagnosing and resolving the issue.

Thanks!

1 answer

Your answer

John Jefferson Doyon 89,540 Reputation points Independent Advisor

2026-10-10T18:55:46.5833333+00:00

Hi, @GERALD DURKOP

To help narrow down the issue:

Can you still send emails from the Outlook account?

If you send a test email to the Outlook address from another account, does the sender receive any bounce-back or delivery failure message?

Have you checked whether your Outlook.com mailbox storage is full at https://outlook.live.com/mail/0/options/general/storage?

Any additional info about the issue you can provide will be helpful in diagnosing and resolving the issue.

Thanks!

Answer 1

Use Outlook.com in a browser and check these in order:

Check storage first. If Microsoft cloud storage or mailbox storage is full, Outlook.com cannot send or receive email, and messages sent while storage was full are bounced back to the sender and are unrecoverable.
Check the Other tab, then set Filter > All and Sort > Date so messages are not hidden by filtering or sort order.
Check Junk Email, Deleted Items, and Archive. If a message is in Junk, mark it as Not junk.
Check for Forwarding and Rules that may be moving messages out of the Inbox.
If only certain senders are affected, ask one sender to send a test message and check whether they receive a non-delivery report.
If the account password was changed recently, update it. Also check whether the account was temporarily blocked because of unusual sign-in activity.
If mail is missing unexpectedly, review recent sign-in activity for the Microsoft account.

If messages still do not arrive anywhere in Outlook.com after those checks, use Outlook.com support from the web interface: select Help, search for the issue, then go to Still need help? and select Yes.