Why didn’t they receive my email?

We frequently receive calls to our help desk asking about email delivery issues. Questions such as why didn’t you receive my email? or why aren’t I receiving their email?

Despite email being one of the oldest forms of electronic communications, it remains the most common and most accepted. Email was invented in 1971 and even pre-dates the use of the world wide web which came into use in 1989. We all rely on email and expect it to work. When we send an email, we do expect it to be delivered and hopefully read. Business owners and employees become genuinely concerned if customer orders are not coming through or confirmations are not being received by their customers.

Although email is an extremely reliable method of communication it is not guaranteed. Emails can get lost or discarded along the way. Even if they are delivered, they can get lost in the receiver’s inbox. Here we cover six of the top reasons why your email did not get through and what to check.

How email works – a basic technical explanation

Email is a lot like standard mail. We create the email. Place it in an envelope and address it, then put it in the post box. The postal service collects it and sorts, routes, and delivers the mail to the destination. In most cases, it arrives safely and on time, but not always. If you think of your email programs such as Outlook or Gmail as the place where your letter gets written, then sent. It goes off to the electronic post office, which in technical terms is called your email server. It is transmitted over the internet and then lands in the receiver’s post box/mail server, ready for collection by the receiver.

Problems can occur at any point. You may have a wrong address, the mail server has problems, the internet is not working or is slow or the mail gets deleted along the way. Here we describe these issues in more detail.

Reason Number #1. Your email is tagged as SPAM.

To avoid excessive SPAM landing in your inbox, email and Internet Service providers filter out and discard massive quantities of unwanted, so-called emails. They use a number of rules to determine if an email is SPAM. Sending bulk emails is the biggest cause as is using certain words in the subject such as Money or sex. Sending newsletters requires particular care.
If the email makes it through the Internet and sending mail servers, it may get blocked at the receiver’s mail servers if they have their own filters. The receiver may get a message to say the email is stuck in quarantine, and you may receive a message from their mail server that your message has been blocked.

Things to check:

• Firstly, see if your email domain is on a blacklist. The MX toolbox site here is an excellent way to check if you are on a blacklist https://mxtoolbox.com/blacklists.aspx. Emails sent from blacklisted sites will be blocked by SPAM filters.
• Secondly, check your spf record. The spf record is used by internet and email providers to verify the validity of the sender. You can check your spf record here: https://mxtoolbox.com/spf.aspx.
• Thirdly check your inbox for notifications from the receiver’s message filter, and lastly ask the receiver if the message is in their SPAM or Junk email folder.
  

Reason Number #2. Your attachment is too large.

Email is commonly used to send files as attachments, however, large attachments will be blocked. Most email services limit the size of email attachments to 50 Mbyte, which is big enough for most documents and a couple of pictures. However, if you are sending many large pictures or movies then 50 MBytes is usually not enough. It is also possible for you to successfully send an email, but it may be blocked by the receiver’s email server as their limit may be lower than yours.

Things to Check

If the attachment is too large you will receive a warning or error message to say that. You can reduce the number of attachments in the email by sending them in batches or sharing large files through a service like Microsoft OneDrive or Dropbox and sending a link instead.

Reason Number #3. Wrong spelling in the email

The email address may be spelled incorrectly. If the spelling mistake is in the company part after the @, then badly misspelled emails may bounce back to say receiver address unknown. similar to the error message as if their domain expired. However, it is possible that the email address is valid and just gets sent to the wrong person. Hopefully, that person will let you know that you sent an email to the wrong person.

Things to check

• Double-check the email spelling. Then correct the spelling and try again.
• Check for notification emails. If the error is in the individual name such as spelling [email protected] instead of [email protected] you will receive a message to say Undeliverable – pter wasn’t found at acme.com.au .

Reason Number #4. Message sitting in the Outbox or Draft Folder

This can apply to Desktop email clients like Microsoft Outlook. If you are experiencing Internet or network issues, then when you send an email it does not get sent but sits in the sent items folder waiting for the network problems to be fixed. However, sometimes messages can become stuck there even after the network problem goes away. In our busy working lives, we are often interrupted while working on an email and forget to finish it or send it.

Things to check

• Check in in the Sent Items folder. If the email is there, firstly check your internet connection is OK, then Open the email again and click send. If that does not work close your email program and open it again and try to send it a second time.
  
• Look in the Drafts folder. open the email and click send.
  

Reason Number #5. Email goes missing after being received.

Occasionally the email message is successfully delivered, but the receiver can’t see it.

Things to check

• It could be tagged as SPAM and end up in the junk folder as described in reason #1 above.
• Sometimes email programs like Outlook or Gmail, apply filters that effectively hide the email, or sometimes the view settings in Outlook become corrupted. Simply reset the view or filter.
• Very rarely there may be a rule set up to send the email to a folder or forward the email and delete it from the inbox. There may be a valid reason for the rule. This can also occur if your email service has been hacked and used by cybercriminals who use rules to hide responses from people who are trying to tell you that your email has been hacked.

Reason Number #6. Their domain records are incorrect.

By domain, we mean the part of the email address after the @. For example, the acme.com part of [email protected]. That is also used as the website address. The domain records for their email must correctly point to their email server.

Things to check

If you receive an email after a few minutes saying your message could not be delivered, then it could be their domain records. If their domain has expired their website will also show an error. This is something the receiver’s business would need to fix, and something they would be giving a high priority to getting fixed.

In Conclusion

In most cases, email is a highly reliable form of communication but certainly not infallible. If you have run through the checks listed above and are still having problems and you are a client of ours then please email or call our help desk to have the issue resolved.

In addition to the checks above we do have the ability to run a message trace report for our clients that can track the sent or incoming emails to see if they were sent, received and the delivery status.

If you are not currently a client, then please book a complimentary consultation via our chat box.