Message Trace

Question

Message Trace

Northeastern Presbyterian Church 0

How do I open message trace? I cannot receive email messages in Outlook.

Ryan-N 16,940 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2026-11-05T19:00:20.9633333+00:00

Hi Northeastern Presbyterian Church,

I wanted to follow up and check whether the information I previously provided has helped resolve the issue you were experiencing.

If you have any updates regarding the issue or if anything remains unclear, please don't hesitate to let me know. Feel free to share any additional information with me. I am always happy to listen and provide further assistance whenever needed.

I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Kind regards,

2 answers

Your answer

Ryan-N 16,940 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2026-11-05T19:00:20.9633333+00:00

Hi Northeastern Presbyterian Church,

I wanted to follow up and check whether the information I previously provided has helped resolve the issue you were experiencing.

If you have any updates regarding the issue or if anything remains unclear, please don't hesitate to let me know. Feel free to share any additional information with me. I am always happy to listen and provide further assistance whenever needed.

I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Kind regards,

Answer 1

Message trace is opened by a Microsoft 365 administrator in the Exchange admin center under Mail flow > Message trace; it is not available inside classic Outlook. ^1^

Open and run message trace

Sign in to the Exchange admin center with your work or school administrator account: https://admin.exchange.microsoft.com
Select Mail flow > Message trace, or open the page directly: https://admin.exchange.microsoft.com/#/messagetrace
Select Start a trace.
Enter:
- Sender: the address that sent the missing message, if known.
- Recipient: your email address.
- Time range: when the message should have arrived.
Select Search.
Open the matching result to review its delivery events. Message trace can show whether Exchange Online received, rejected, deferred, quarantined, filtered, or delivered the message. ^1^

For searches covering 10 days or less, summary results are available directly. Searches spanning more than 10 days produce a downloadable report and can take several hours; trace data can be searched for up to 90 days. ^1^

Required permissions

The account running the trace must have one of these roles:

Exchange Administrator
Global Administrator
Membership in Exchange Online’s Organization Management role group

Use the least-privileged suitable role—normally Exchange Administrator rather than Global Administrator. If Mail flow or Message trace is missing, ask your Microsoft 365 administrator to run the trace or assign the appropriate role. ^1^

Interpret the result

Delivered: Exchange Online delivered the message to the mailbox. Check Outlook on the web, Junk Email, Deleted Items, inbox rules, and other folders. If the message appears on the web but not in classic Outlook, the problem is with the desktop client or its synchronization.
Failed, rejected, filtered, or quarantined: Open the event details and follow the displayed delivery information. This points to a mail-flow or filtering issue rather than an Outlook desktop issue.
Pending/deferred: Delivery is still being attempted; check again after several minutes.
No result: Verify the sender, recipient, and time range. The message might not have reached your Microsoft 365 organization.

Separate mailbox delivery from an Outlook problem

Open Outlook on the web and check whether new messages arrive there.

Messages arrive on the web: troubleshoot classic Outlook. First check the bottom of Outlook for Working Offline; if shown, select Send/Receive > Work Offline to reconnect. Also verify that the computer has internet access. ^2^
Messages do not arrive on the web: have the administrator use message trace and also check Microsoft 365 service health. Microsoft’s administrator guidance uses this web-versus-desktop check to distinguish an Outlook client problem from a mailbox or mail-flow problem. ^3^

If this is a personal Outlook.com account rather than a Microsoft 365 business or school Exchange Online mailbox, the Exchange admin center and administrator message trace do not apply.

References

Answer 2

Hi Northeastern Presbyterian Church,

Welcome to the Microsoft Q&A forum.

To perform a Message Trace, you need to use a Business account with the appropriate administrator permissions in the tenant. You can then perform the check through the Exchange Admin Center by following these steps:

Step 1: Go to the Exchange Admin Center.

Step 2: Select Mail flow > Message trace > Start a trace.

Step 3: Enter the sender/recipient information and the time range you want to check.

Then, select Search.

The Message Trace results will display information about the email's delivery and processing, including its status and details that may help determine why the email was not successfully delivered to you.

You can refer to the following document:

Message trace in the new EAC in Exchange Online | Microsoft Learn

If you cannot find the expected email in the Message Trace results, it is possible that the email never reached your tenant's Exchange system. In this case, the issue may be on the sender's side. You should contact the sender and ask them to check the email delivery status, including any error messages they may have received.

I hope this information is helpful.

If you have any questions or need further assistance, please feel free to share them in the comments on this post so I can continue to support you.

I look forward to continuing the conversation.

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