Help Centre
Home Email

Unable to receive emails

For Mail Basic and Mail Business.

If you notice that you are no longer receiving emails, there may be various reasons for this. This article will help you to troubleshoot the issue and find a solution. Go through the following points in order.

 

Note

If you have problems sending emails, you can find related information in the Help Centre article Unable to send emails.

Check inbox in Webmail

The first step is to check whether emails are arriving in IONOS Webmail. With Webmail, you can retrieve and read emails without additional applications, using any computer with a web browser. To do this, complete the following:

  • Log in to Webmail.

  • Click on Inbox in the navigation bar on the left.

  • Check whether the expected emails are in the inbox.

  • If the emails are in the inbox, the problem is most likely due to the settings of your email program (e.g. Outlook, Thunderbird, Apple Mail) on your computer or smartphone. in this case, continue with the instructions in the section Check configuration settings in the email program.

  • If the emails are not in the inbox, check all other folders, including the spam folder. Sometimes emails are incorrectly categorised as unwanted advertising (spam) or moved to another folder by a filter rule. If emails are incorrectly recognised as spam, follow the instructions in the section Incorrectly recognised as spam. If the emails are in a different folder, follow the instructions in the section Check filter rules in Webmail or in the email program.

  • If the emails are neither in the spam folder nor in another folder, the storage space in your email inbox may be full. In this case, follow the instructions in the section Check the amount of storage space used. Also check whether a filter rule automatically deletes incoming emails.

Incorrectly recognised as spam

An incoming email may be incorrectly classified as spam (unwanted email) and moved to the spam folder of Webmail or your email program.

Check the spam rules and adjust the spam settings if necessary. In the spam settings of Webmail or your email program, you can specify that emails from certain senders are never treated as spam.

You can find more information on the spam settings of Webmail in the article Configuring anti-spam settings in Webmail.

How to move emails categorised as spam is explained in the article Moving and opening emails classified as spam.

Check filter rules in Webmail or in the email program

If the incoming emails are in a folder other than the inbox, you may have set up a rule that automatically moves incoming emails to another folder, or deletes them.

Check your filter rules in Webmail. Deactivate all rules as a test. If you are then able to receive emails again, check and activate each rule individually to find the faulty rule.

For Webmail, you can find more information in the article Creating mail filter rules in Webmail. For filter functionalities of your email program, use the built-in help function or visit the manufacturer's website.

Check the amount of storage space used

If the storage space in your email inbox is full, no new emails can be delivered. In this case, the sender will receive a message that the email cannot be delivered due to a lack of storage space.

All emails received and sent, including their attachments, are considered as part of the mailbox's storage until they are deleted either automatically or manually.

Note

Emails in the Sent folder also take up storage space.

The size of the email storage space varies depending on the product and package selected. A Mail Basic mailbox has 2 GB of email storage space as standard. A Mail Business mailbox has 50 GB of storage space.

In this case, check the storage space used. You can find instructions in the article Email storage is exceeded.

This article also explains what you can do if the email storage space in your mailbox is full.

Check configuration settings in the email program

This step is relevant if you see your emails in Webmail but they do not arrive on your computer or smartphone (e.g. in Outlook or Apple Mail). This is often due to outdated or incorrect configuration settings.

Check all the configuration settings of your email program, such as server addresses, username, password, and port settings. You can find the necessary instructions in the Help Centre on the My Emails page in the drop-down lists.

If the configuration is correct, check whether a filter rule in your email program deletes emails. If this is not the case, follow the instructions in the next section.

Check the configuration of the firewall and virus scanner

In some cases, firewalls or virus scanners can erroneously block the receipt of emails. Deactivate these for a short test. If this allows you to receive emails again, check the authorisations and configuration settings for your email program in the security software.

Sender has received a non-delivery message

If an email cannot be accepted by our servers, the email sender receives a message with a status code (bounce message). Ask the sender whether they have received such an automatic message.

A list of these status codes and their meaning can be found in the article SMTP error messages of the IONOS mail servers.

Check domain settings (if applicable)

If your domain has recently been moved or reconnected, the cause may lie in the DNS settings.

Check MX records: In order for emails to your domain to arrive at IONOS, the MX records of your domain must correctly point to the IONOS servers. You can find instructions on how to check this in the article Adjusting MX records for receiving email via IONOS mail servers.

Check domain status: Has your domain possibly expired? Log in to your IONOS account and check under Domains & SSL whether your domain is active.

Problem not described

If you have checked all the steps and the problem persists, there may be a general fault. Check the IONOS status page under Email to see whether a fault is known.

Is there no global outage, and have the solutions mentioned so far not helped?

Give us a call

Content