If customers are not receiving your business emails, the cause may be simple—or it may involve your email provider, domain settings or DNS configuration. Before changing anything, you can carry out a few controlled checks to find out where the problem is.
This guide is designed for small-business owners, not technical specialists. You do not need to understand every email setting to identify useful clues.
Start by confirming what is actually failing
First, establish whether the problem affects sending, receiving or both. These are separate parts of email, and a business can have one working while the other is not.
Use a personal email address for a test. For example, send a message from your domain address to a personal Gmail, Outlook or iCloud address. Then reply to it and check whether the reply reaches your domain mailbox.
For a more useful test, try more than one recipient provider:
- Send a short message from your business address to a personal address with one provider.
- Send the same type of message to a personal address with another provider.
- Reply from both personal addresses to your business address.
- Check the inbox and junk or spam folders on every account.
- Record which messages arrived, where they appeared and how long they took.
Use a clear subject such as “Email test” and avoid sending sensitive information. If you are testing a contact form, also submit a test enquiry and check both the recipient mailbox and any automatic confirmation email.
Check the simple causes first
Before investigating DNS or contacting support, check the everyday issues that can make email appear to be broken.
Look in junk or spam folders
A message can be delivered successfully but placed in a junk folder. Check the spam or junk folder in both your business mailbox and the recipient’s mailbox. If a legitimate message is there, mark it as not spam and add the sender to the address book where appropriate.
If messages consistently go to spam, that may indicate a sender reputation or email authentication problem. It does not necessarily mean the mailbox itself is unavailable.
Confirm the email address
Check the recipient address carefully, including spelling, punctuation and the domain name. An old address saved in an autocomplete list can cause repeated failures.
Also check the address printed on your website, social profiles, invoices and directory listings. Customers may be using an outdated address even if your current mailbox works correctly.
Check mailbox storage
Many email services have a storage limit. When a mailbox is full, it may stop accepting new messages or behave unpredictably. Look for a storage or quota warning in your email service’s control panel or webmail interface.
Delete unnecessary large attachments and empty the deleted or trash folder if needed. If you cannot find the quota information, ask your email provider to confirm whether the mailbox is over its limit.
Check forwarding rules
Forwarding can send incoming messages to another address, sometimes without leaving a copy in the original mailbox. Review your forwarding settings and filters for rules that move, delete or redirect messages.
If you see a forwarding address or rule that you did not create, change your password and contact your provider promptly. It could indicate that someone accessed the account.
Confirm that you can log in
Try signing in through your provider’s webmail page, rather than relying only on an email app. If webmail works but your phone or computer does not, the issue may be with the app, password saved on the device or connection settings.
If you cannot log in, look for a password reset option and check whether the provider has reported an outage. Do not keep guessing a password repeatedly, as this can trigger a temporary account lock.
Understand the difference between sending and receiving
A sending problem usually means your message cannot leave the mailbox, is rejected by the recipient’s server or is delivered to spam. Look for a bounce-back message. It may say that the address does not exist, the recipient’s mailbox is full, your message was rejected or authentication failed.
A receiving problem usually means messages are not reaching your domain mailbox. Possible causes include a full mailbox, a forwarding rule, an incorrectly configured domain or a problem with the service that hosts your email.
If neither sending nor receiving works, check whether the account is active and whether you can log in through webmail. If only one direction fails, include that detail when contacting support—it can significantly narrow the investigation.
A delayed message is different from a rejected message. Note the time it was sent and the time it arrived. Occasional delays can happen between providers, but repeated or long delays should be investigated by your email provider.
Know which service controls what
Several services may be involved in your domain email, and they are not always supplied by the same company:
- Email or mailbox service: Stores your messages and provides webmail, apps and mailboxes.
- Domain registrar: The company where your domain name is registered and renewed.
- DNS provider or DNS manager: Controls the technical records that tell the internet where services for your domain are located.
- Web host: Stores and delivers your website. Website hosting and email hosting may be separate services.
For example, your website could be hosted by one provider, your domain registered with another and your email supplied by a third. Knowing this helps you contact the right support team. A website hosting company may not control your email, and an email provider may not control your domain registration.
What email DNS records do
DNS, or the Domain Name System, helps internet services find the correct destination for a domain. Email-related DNS records support delivery and help receiving providers decide whether a message is legitimate.
You may hear these terms when speaking with support:
- MX record: Tells other mail systems which server accepts incoming email for your domain. If MX records are missing or point to the wrong service, incoming messages may not reach your mailbox.
- SPF: Identifies which services are allowed to send email for your domain. It helps receiving systems assess whether a message was sent by an authorised service.
- DKIM: Adds a digital signature to outgoing messages. The receiving service can use it to check that the message came through an authorised system and was not changed in transit.
- DMARC: Provides rules for handling messages that do not pass authentication checks and can give the domain owner reports about those messages.
These records can matter when email has stopped working after a domain move, email migration or DNS change. They can also matter when messages send successfully but are frequently rejected or placed in spam.
Do not delete or edit DNS records unless your email or DNS provider gives you verified, service-specific instructions. Record values depend on the provider and on the services connected to your domain. Removing a record or entering the wrong value can interrupt email, website services or other systems. DNS changes also may not take effect immediately.
Collect evidence before contacting support
Support teams can usually investigate more efficiently when you provide specific information. Keep screenshots or copy the full text of any error or bounce-back message rather than summarising it from memory.
Include:
- The sending and receiving addresses involved, without sharing your password.
- The date and time of each test, including your time zone if relevant.
- Which provider each test address used.
- Whether the message reached the inbox, spam folder or nowhere at all.
- Whether sending works, receiving works or both fail.
- Any bounce-back code or error message.
- Screenshots showing relevant warnings, such as a full mailbox or failed login.
- Recent changes, such as a domain transfer, DNS edit, email migration, password change or website move.
If you contact your domain provider, ask whether the domain is active and whether its DNS records are being managed there. If you contact your email provider, ask them to check the mailbox status, delivery logs and domain authentication. If you have recently changed DNS, tell them exactly what changed and when.
When to ask for help urgently
Contact your email provider or domain manager if messages fail after a domain move, DNS change or email migration; if you cannot access the mailbox; or if several addresses stop working at once.
Get help promptly if you find unfamiliar forwarding rules, unexpected password-reset messages or other signs that the account may have been compromised. Change the password using a trusted device, enable multi-factor authentication if available and ask the provider to review account activity.
A short prevention checklist
- Keep your domain registration and email provider details somewhere secure.
- Know which company manages your domain, DNS, website and mailboxes.
- Test your main business address occasionally from more than one email provider.
- Check that the email address shown on your website is current.
- Review mailbox storage, forwarding rules and login security.
- Keep copies of provider instructions before making DNS changes.
- Do not alter email DNS records without verified guidance.
If you need help checking a website contact address, updating email-related website content or maintaining a supported website, contact SiteRook. You can also review current website support options on the SiteRook pricing page.