Step 1: Check Your Spam or Junk Folder

This is the most common reason emails go missing. Email providers automatically filter messages they think are spam, and sometimes legitimate emails end up there.

1. 1Open your email and look for a folder called Spam, Junk, or Junk Email in the left sidebar.
2. 2Look through the messages. If you find a legitimate email there, open it.
3. 3Mark it as "Not Spam" or "Not Junk" — this tells your email provider to deliver future messages from that sender to your inbox.

Step 2: Check If Your Inbox Is Full

Every email account has a storage limit. When your inbox is full, new emails bounce back to the sender — they never reach you at all.

• Gmail: look at the bottom of the Gmail page for a storage indicator. Free accounts get 15 GB shared across Gmail, Drive, and Photos.
• Yahoo Mail: go to Settings → Security → Storage to check your usage.
• Outlook/Hotmail: go to Settings → View all Outlook settings → General → Storage.
• If your inbox is full, delete old emails (especially those with large attachments) or empty your Trash and Spam folders.

Step 3: Check Your Email Filters and Rules

Email filters automatically sort incoming messages. If a filter is misconfigured, it may be moving emails to a folder you are not checking, or deleting them automatically.

1. 1In Gmail: click the gear icon → See all settings → Filters and Blocked Addresses. Review any filters that might be affecting your incoming mail.
2. 2In Outlook: go to Settings → View all Outlook settings → Mail → Rules. Check for any rules that might be moving or deleting messages.
3. 3In Yahoo Mail: go to Settings → More Settings → Filters.
4. 4Delete or edit any filters that are incorrectly routing your messages.

Step 4: Check Your Blocked Senders List

If you accidentally blocked a sender, their emails will never reach your inbox.

1. 1In Gmail: go to Settings → See all settings → Filters and Blocked Addresses. Look for any blocked addresses.
2. 2In Outlook: go to Settings → View all Outlook settings → Junk email → Blocked senders and domains.
3. 3In Yahoo Mail: go to Settings → More Settings → Security and Privacy → Blocked addresses.
4. 4Remove any addresses that should not be blocked.

Step 5: Check Your Email App Settings (Phone or Computer)

If you use an email app (like Mail on iPhone, Outlook on Windows, or Gmail on Android), the app may have a sync problem.

1. 1Close the email app completely and reopen it.
2. 2Pull down on the inbox to manually refresh (on a phone).
3. 3Check that your phone has an internet connection.
4. 4Sign out of the email app and sign back in.
5. 5If the problem persists, delete the email account from the app and add it again.

Step 6: Check If the Sender Is Having a Problem

Sometimes the issue is on the sender's end, not yours.

• Ask the sender to check whether their email bounced back to them. A bounce message will tell them why the delivery failed.
• Ask them to try sending from a different email address.
• Check whether you can receive emails from other senders — if you can, the problem is specific to that sender.

Step 7: Check Your Email Provider's Status

Occasionally, email providers experience outages that temporarily prevent email delivery.

1. 1Go to downdetector.com and search for your email provider (Gmail, Yahoo, Outlook, etc.).
2. 2If there is a reported outage, wait for the service to restore.
3. 3Check the provider's official social media accounts for status updates.