When you work with Outlook and stop receiving emails, you can always blame the error on a configuration problem or a server failure. Outlook has a lot of manual settings, so a failure to receive mail can always have an easy-to-detect explanation. In Gmail, things change quite a bit since, by default, the Google mail client is designed to be “fool-proof” so that it works simply by entering your email and password.
What happens then if you stop receiving emails in your Gmail inbox? Does that mean you are one of those “fools” who don’t even know how to use email like a normal person? Not at all! As soon as you start to look a little deeper, you will see that Gmail is more complex than it seems. There may be several reasons that justify stopping receiving emails.
10 essential checks to solve problems receiving emails in Gmail
If you have not received an email that you were expecting or are not directly receiving any email in Gmail, the best thing you can do is carry out a battery of tests.
1. Check your internet connection
If your smartphone, tablet, or PC does not have an internet connection, the Gmail mailbox will not be refreshed, so you won’t see if any new email has arrived.
Before you get into more complex checks, take a look at your internet connection. Try opening your browser and visiting a web page or watching a YouTube video. If you have lost access to the internet, try to recover it and re-enter Gmail.
2. Access Gmail from another device
To rule out a problem with your smartphone or PC, try accessing Gmail from another device and check if you receive emails correctly on that device.
If you are receiving emails on the other device, it means that the problem is with your smartphone or PC. Try reinstalling the Gmail app or clear cache/cookies if you access Gmail from the browser.
3. Are Google servers down?
Once local and internet access issues have been ruled out, the next step is to check Google’s servers. If the Gmail servers are down, it is most likely due to maintenance work or a general failure.
In these cases, you can only wait for Google to bring up the servers. You can check the status of Gmail servers (as well as other servers like Drive, Google Docs, Classroom, Google Meet, etc.) from the Google Workspace Status Dashboard.
4. Send yourself an email
Write a test email and send it to your Gmail account. Ideally, you should use a different mail service, such as Outlook (or any other). This will help you to know if you have problems receiving external emails. You can also use another Gmail account to do the test.
If you receive the test email successfully, that means the problem is with the person who sent you the email. Ask him to send you the mail again.
5. Check the spam folder
The “spam” or junk mail folder is a black hole of emails. If Gmail mistakenly identifies an email as spam, it will send it to this folder, and you will not see it in your main inbox.
It is quite common for Google to get confused and classify an email as spam by accident, so first of all, check all the emails that have been saved in this folder of your mailbox. You can see the contents of the spam folder from the side menu of Gmail.
If you find the email you were waiting for in the spam folder, you can return it to your inbox by opening the email and clicking on the “Not spam” button that you will see on the screen.
6. Also, check the trash
This is another human error. Sometimes we have so many emails that we can accidentally delete them while browsing the mailbox. Check the “Trash” folder that you will find just below the “Spam” folder.
Remember that the Gmail Trash is automatically emptied every 30 days. If you want to restore an email from the trash, open it and click on “Move to -> Received.”
7. Update the Gmail app
Having an outdated version of Gmail can cause synchronization problems with the mail server and other errors. Open the Android Play Store or go to the iPhone App Store and search for the Gmail app. If there is any pending update, you can install it by pressing the “Update” button.
8. Turn off email forwarding
If you have a rule set up to forward all incoming emails to a second email address, incoming emails won’t show up at your primary email address.
These settings are very useful when working with multiple email accounts, but they can be a real headache if they are not managed correctly. To disable email forwarding in Gmail, follow these steps:
- Open Gmail from the browser and click on the gear icon that you will see in the upper right area.
- Select “ See all settings.”
- Go to “ POP/IMAP mail and forwarding.”
- If an email is configured in the “ Forwarding ” section, eliminate said redirection.
In this way, the emails will re-enter your inbox as usual. Of course, if you miss an email, check the forwarding email account since that is where all the emails that you have not received during this time will be.
9. Check filters and blocked addresses
Within the Gmail configuration settings, you also have the option to apply certain filters. These filters are often applied automatically by Gmail itself to get rid of spam, and it may be getting in the way of receiving important emails.
From the configuration settings, go to “Filters and blocked addresses” to check the active filters in your Gmail account. If you see a filter that shouldn’t exist, check its box and select “Remove.”
10. Have you reached the storage limit?
Did you know that your Google account has a limit of 15GB of storage? Those 15 gigabytes are shared by all the Google apps you use, such as Google Photos, Google Drive, Gmail, and other Google apps.
Therefore, if you have many files stored in Drive or the Google Photos cloud and have reached the ceiling of those 15GB, there will not be enough space to receive emails in your Gmail account.
To check the available space in your Google account, go to Google Drive, and in the side menu, check the “Storage” section. If it’s full, free up some space, and you’ll get back to receiving emails without any problems.
These are the 10 basic checks you must carry out when not receiving emails in your Gmail account. If you have not been able to solve the problem, the next step is to contact Gmail technical support. To do this, go to the Assistance Center or report your problem to Google by clicking on the “?” that you will see in the upper right area of Gmail.
