Email not sending or receiving Troubleshooting guide

Most email sending and receiving problems come down to a small handful of causes. Work through the checks below in order and you’ll fix the large majority of issues in a few minutes.

If your email has stopped sending, stopped receiving, or is asking for your password over and over, this guide will help you track down the cause.

Step 1: Test webmail first

Before changing anything on your phone or computer, log in to webmail in a browser. This tells us straight away whether the problem is with your mailbox or with your app.

• Webmail works fine – your mailbox and password are healthy, so the problem is in your device’s settings. Skip to Step 3.
• Webmail won’t let you in – the issue is your address or password. Continue to Step 2.

Try sending yourself a test message from within webmail. If that arrives, the mailbox is working correctly and sending/receiving is fine at our end.

Step 2: Check your address and password

If you can’t log in to webmail:

• Make sure you are entering your full email address as the username (for example you@yourdomain.com), not just the part before the @.
• Check for typos, stray spaces, and Caps Lock.
• If in doubt, reset your email password and try webmail again with the new password.

If you reset your password, remember to update it everywhere you use the account – your phone, your computer, and any other devices. A device still trying the old password is the most common cause of repeated password prompts.

Step 3: Check your device’s mail settings

If webmail works but your app doesn’t, your app’s settings are almost certainly the cause. Compare them against the correct values:

Our email settings reference has the full details, and we have step-by-step guides for iPhone/iPad, Android, Outlook, Apple Mail and Thunderbird.

Receiving but not sending?

This is nearly always the outgoing (SMTP) server. Check that:

• Your outgoing server is set to mail.yourdomain.com.
• The outgoing port is 465 (or 587) with SSL/TLS switched on.
• Outgoing authentication is turned on and uses your full email address and password.

Many apps describe outgoing authentication as “optional” – it isn’t. If it’s switched off, you’ll be able to receive email but every message you try to send will fail or sit in your Outbox.

Sending but not receiving?

If your outgoing mail works but nothing is arriving:

• Check webmail (Step 1). If new mail appears there but not in your app, it’s an incoming (IMAP) settings problem in your app.
• Check your Spam or Junk folder, both in your app and in webmail.
• Make sure your mailbox isn’t full – a full mailbox can stop new mail being delivered. Delete large or old messages, or ask us to increase your storage.
• If you’ve set up a forwarder or filter, check it isn’t sending your mail elsewhere or deleting it.

Other common causes

• No internet connection – confirm other websites and apps are working.
• Recent password change – update the new password on every device (see the alert in Step 2).
• Airplane mode or offline mode – check your device isn’t set to work offline.
• A specific message won’t send – a very large attachment can block your Outbox. Remove it and send the rest, then send the large file another way.

A message bounced back – what does it mean?

If an email you sent comes back with an error, the wording usually tells you why:

• “Address not found” / “user unknown” – the recipient’s address is mistyped or no longer exists. Check the spelling.
• “Mailbox full” – the recipient’s mailbox is full; try again later or contact them another way.
• “Relay access denied” / “authentication required” – your outgoing authentication isn’t set up. See “Receiving but not sending?” above.

Still stuck after these checks? Please contact our support team. Let us know the exact wording of any error message, which device or app you’re using, and whether webmail works – that helps us get you sorted quickly.