Why Am I Not Getting Emails? Troubleshoot When Gmail Isn’t Working

Follow these steps to get your emails delivered to the right inbox

Co-authored by Darlene Antonelli, MA Reviewed by Luigi Oppido

Last Updated: March 29, 2025 Fact Checked

Are you not getting emails in your Gmail account, or maybe you've noticed that you don't get emails from specific senders? From not enough storage space to misidentified and misplaced messages, here are some troubleshooting steps so you can fix your Gmail so you get all your emails.

Resolve Issues with Gmail Not Receiving New Emails

Make sure you have storage space available because you won't get new emails from anyone if your storage is full. You also should check filters and folders like Trash, Spam, and Archived since filters may have automatically moved the emails from your Inbox.

1

Check your storage.

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Go to https://one.google.com/storage to see how much space you're currently using between Gmail, Photos, and Google Drive. You might need to delete some files to free up space so you can get emails to your Gmail account or you can pay for more storage space.

2

Check if the email was archived, deleted, or marked as spam.

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You won't see an email in your inbox if it was marked as any of these. You can easily search for the email to find it. To search for the missing email,
- Click the filter icon
  in the search box.
- Change "All Mail" to Mail & Spam & Trash.
- Enter any keywords that you remember in the missing email. If you don't remember any, leave the fields blank.
- Click Search.

3

Check if the email was filtered.

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You won't see the email if a filter hides it in another folder. To find out if you have filters active, go to Settings > Filters and Blocked Addresses.
- Look for filters including "Delete it" or "Skip inbox" and click the Edit or Delete option.
- Follow the on-screen instructions to get rid of that filter.

4

Check if your emails are being forwarded to another email.

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The original email might be in your archive, but you won't see the email in your inbox. Go to Settings > Forwarding and POP/IMAP > and look if you have forwarding activated.
- If you want to keep forwarding active but want to see the emails in your Gmail account as well, make sure Keep Gmail's copy in the Inbox is selected.
- Click Save Changes when you're done.

5

Check POP/IMAP settings.

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Email clients include Outlook and Apple Mail.

6

Check your internet connection.

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You won't see emails if your network is too slow or intermittent. You need a strong and consistent connection to the internet so you can receive and send emails.
- You may need to restart your router/modem if you haven't done that in a while. To restart, simply unplug your router/modem from power for a few minutes, then plug everything back in!
- Check out this wikiHow article for more steps to speed up a slow internet connection.

7

Check for outages.

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While not frequent, the Gmail servers could be down. If the servers are down, you won't be getting new emails to your account.
- Go to https://www.google.com/appsstatus/dashboard/ to see if Gmail is online.