Gmail is a reliable email provider 99% of the time, but it’s not without its problems. One of the biggest problems you face with Gmail is not receiving new emails. Of course, this is a major concern if you rely heavily on Gmail for personal or business communications.
Fortunately, there are some troubleshooting tips you can use to recover the emails in your inbox.
Gmail malfunction
If you find that you’re not getting new emails in your Gmail account, check if there’s a glitch in Gmail. Sometimes Gmail’s servers are down, which may prevent incoming emails from being delivered. Google has a website that reports the status of its various servers. To check the Gmail server status:
- Open the Gmail status page in your browser.
- Look for the icon next to Gmail. If the icon is green, your Gmail servers are working properly.
- If the icon is orange or pink, there’s a technical problem with Gmail’s servers.
All you can do is wait for Google’s servers to become available again in case of an outage. Google usually fixes these issues pretty quickly.
Use Gmail online
If you’re using Gmail with an email program like Outlook, your client may have an issue that’s preventing new email from being delivered. Use the Gmail web interface and check for new emails by following the instructions below.
- Open a web browser and go to Gmail.com.
- Sign in to your Gmail account.
- If you find emails in the Gmail web interface that you can’t find in your email client, the problem is with your email client. Reset the client or make another email client use Gmail.
- If you’d rather fix your mail client than upgrade to a new one, here’s what you can do with your current mail client:
- Remove your email account from the client and then add your email account again. This allows the customer to update their email and account settings.
- Uninstall and reinstall your email client. This should solve the customer’s problems
Check your Gmail storage space
Gmail uses storage space from your primary Google account. You might not get new emails in Gmail if you’re low on storage space. You can check your Gmail storage space by following the steps below.
- Launch Gmail.com in a web browser and sign in to your account.
- Scroll to the bottom of the email, where Gmail shows storage usage.
- If you’re using a vertical layout in Gmail, the Gmail archive indicator is on the right side of your email list.
Free up space on Google Storage by following our recommendations below:
- Upgrade your storage plan through Google if you don’t want to delete content from your account. You can choose from various paid plans from Google to suit your storage needs.
- Delete large emails from your Gmail account.
- Delete files from Google Drive.
Check your spam folder
Gmail sometimes marks a secure email as spam and moves it to the spam folder. If you can’t find the new email, check your spam folder by following the instructions below.
- Select the Spam folder in the left sidebar.
- On the right, find the email you were waiting for among all your spam messages.
- Select and open the email if you find it.
- At the top, select Report spam to move the email to your inbox. This tells Google that you don’t want such emails to end up in spam in the future.
Check the all mail folder
The Gmail All Mail folder contains all of the email in your account. If you can’t find an email in a particular folder, check the all mail folder to see if your email is there.
- Sign in to Gmail online.
- If you don’t see the all mail folder, you can expand it by clicking More in the left sidebar for more options and selecting All Mail.
- You can now see all your Gmail emails.
Check your Gmail filters
Gmail filters let you apply different functions to the emails you receive in your account. It is possible that the filter will automatically take action and accidentally block incoming emails.
- Select Settings/gear icon in the upper right corner of the Gmail web interface.
- Select Show all settings.
- Select the Filters & Blocked Addresses tab in the top bar to view all your Gmail filters.
- Check each filter to make sure it’s not taking any unintentional action on your incoming emails.
- If you find a filter problematic, remove it from your account by selecting Remove next to the filter.
- If necessary, recreate the filter and see if the problem is resolved.
Disable email forwarding
If you are not receiving emails, disable email forwarding to resolve the issue by following the instructions below.
- Sign in to your Gmail account.
- Select Settings/gear icon in the upper right corner and select Show all settings.
- At the top, select the Forwarding & POP/IMAP tab.
- In the Forwarding section, turn on the Turn off forwarding switch.
- Select Save Changes at the bottom.
- If this method solves your problem, you can enable email forwarding by selecting Keep a copy of Gmail in my inbox from the drop-down menu.