If you are not receiving new emails in Outlook, try these fixes to fix the problem. You can’t see the expected email in Outlook on your desktop? If so, there may be a problem with Outlook that is preventing it from receiving new emails.
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7 Way to fix Outlook Not Receiving Emails
There are several reasons why Outlook may not receive new messages. Fortunately, you have several fixes to solve this problem.
1. Check Spam Folder in Outlook
Outlook has a spam filtering option that sends spam and suspicious emails to the Spam folder. This folder is separate from your inbox, so if Outlook has marked a legitimate message as spam, it may be in.
Luckily, it’s easy to get those emails back in the inbox. In the future, you can also instruct Outlook not to mark emails from this particular sender as spam in the future.
You can do it like this:
- Launch Outlook and click the Spam option in the left sidebar.
- You will see emails that Outlook has marked as spam. If you found the email you expected here, right-click on it and choose Spam, followed by No Spam.
- Before Outlook puts the email back in the Inbox, it will ask you if you still want to trust this sender’s email. Check the box if you want to do this, then click OK.
If you find particularly dangerous emails in the Spam folder, you can report spam and fraud emails to the authorities.
2. Change Your Email Sorting Options
You can sort your email using various options in Outlook. If these sorting options are set to not show the most recent emails at the top, your newly received emails may be mixed with other messages. This makes you think that you are not receiving any email in Outlook.
A quick and easy way to fix this problem is to change the order of emails in Outlook as follows:
- Open Outlook and click Inbox in the left pane.
- Click Sort by text (which may say a date or similar) and choose a date option.
- At the bottom of the menu, select Most recent at the top. You can also use the arrow icon next to the sort selection to toggle between ascending or descending.
Your recently received emails should now appear at the top of your inbox.
3. Disable Offline Mode in Outlook
Outlook has an option called Work Offline that allows you to disconnect from the server if you don’t receive new emails. If this option is enabled for some reason, you may not be receiving new emails.
You can fix this problem by turning off offline mode in Outlook:
- Open Outlook and click the Send/Receive tab at the top.
- In the Preferences section click on the option to work offline.
Outlook should now be back online; Wait a minute or two for new emails to be picked up for you.
4. Make sure the sender is not on your block list
Outlook allows you to keep a blocked list containing all the addresses you don’t want to receive emails from. Your trusted email sender might have been added to this list somehow, and that’s why their emails are bouncing.
If that’s the case, removing your sender from the block list should resolve the issue. You can do it like this:
- Click the Home tab at the top of Outlook and select Junk Email.
- Click on the Junk Mail option from the newly opened menu.
- Select the tab that says Blocked Senders to see a list of people blocked in Outlook.
- If the person you’re expecting an email from is listed, click their name and select Remove. This will remove them from the block list so that you can receive their emails.
5. Check Outlook Rules
Outlook Rules automate many of your email-related tasks. If you have a rule that works with your received email, it can send your email to another folder or delete your email from your inbox.
If you’re not sure, you’ll need to check the rules in Outlook and make sure there aren’t any rules mentioned above. If you find something, you need to turn it off to fix the problem.
Here’s how to access the Rules section in Outlook:
- Click the File tab at the top of your Outlook window.
- In the Info tab, select Manage rules and alerts on the next screen.
- Under Email rules, you’ll see all the rules you’ve created for your email. You need to find the rule that modifies your incoming email and uncheck the box next to it.
This will disable the rule and your emails will start appearing in your inbox.
6. Clear Outlook Cache
Like most applications, Outlook saves cache files on your computer to improve performance. These files can sometimes be the reason for not receiving emails in Outlook.
You can try clearing the Outlook cache and see if that helps the app to receive new emails. This will not delete any of your Outlook emails or their attachments:
- Press Win + R keys to open the Run dialog box.
- Type the following and hit Enter: %localappdata%\Microsoft\Outlook
- A File Explorer window will open and you will see a folder named RoamCache. Open this folder; Outlook cache files.
- Select all files in that folder by pressing Ctrl+A. Then right-click a file and click Delete (or just press the Delete key on your keyboard).
- delete outlook cache
- If this fixes your problem, be sure to delete these files from the Recycle Bin as well to save space.
7. Use a New Outlook Profile
If you still don’t receive new emails in Outlook after trying the above, there’s probably something wrong with your Outlook profile. Outlook profiles can sometimes get corrupted or there may be some other setting that changes the way they work.
A quick way to resolve Outlook profile issues is to delete the old profile and use a new profile. This only requires reconfiguring your email account and should not take more than a few minutes.
Keep your email account settings handy, as you will need them in the following steps:
- Launch Outlook, click the File tab, select Account Settings, and select Manage Profiles.
- Click the View Profile button to view your Outlook profile.
- On the Profile screen, click Add to add a new Outlook profile.
- Enter a name for your profile and click OK.
- Follow the on-screen instructions to add your email account to the newly created profile.
- Select your newly created profile from the Always to use this profile drop-down menu and click Apply, then click OK.
- Relaunch Outlook to start using your new profile.
Conclusion
If you haven’t received your emails in Outlook, the above methods should fix the problem and allow Outlook to receive new emails for you.
If Outlook is still not receiving new messages, you may want to consider using a free Outlook alternative, at least temporarily. These are just as good as Outlook and in some cases even better features.