Using Hotmail for some people helps them to work. Yet, some users might experience that they never receive any mail from others. If this happens, you have to know how to fix Hotmail not receiving email. Check some methods to fix this issue, so you can get the mail again in the future.
Checking The Rules on Outlook
Your Hotmail has its own rule. As a user, you can set many rules. Examples of the features are deleted, move, flag, and reply. If the setting is not correct, you might not be able to send and receive the emails in your Hotmail account. So, it is important to know how to fix Hotmail not receiving email.
- Open your Hotmail in your Outlook. Click setting on the menu selection.
- Scroll until you see the option of View All Outlook.
- There will be some tabs and select Rules.
- Check every rule there. If you think the option to get and reply to emails is limited, you can turn them off, so the emails will appear again in your inbox.
- To finish this task, click OK. The new rules will be applied.
Sometimes, the rules are automatic. You have to change them in case you never get any emails, especially special verification from other platforms. These rules are adjustable according to your need, so you can be free to change them. The mail folders will follow the rules you have set.
The Sender's Status
Another reason why you cannot receive emails but it is not in general is because the sender is the account you block. Hotmail provides the user to check whether you have blocked them or not in the setting. So, check the status of the sender first before doing other methods.
- Open Outlook and sign in to your Hotmail.
- Go to the setting and check the list of blocked users.
- If the sender is the account you block, you can unblock it by removing their account from the list.
- Tell the sender to resend the email, then their email will appear in your inbox. The previous email will not appear in any folders.
Checking Connected Account
The connected account is one of the reasons why your account doesn't receive any emails anymore. There is a limited number of connected accounts and your Hotmail will only receive mail from those accounts. Meanwhile, the new ones are unrecognized.
- Open Outlook and sign in to your Hotmail.
- Go to the setting.
- Scroll the selection and select connected accounts.
- You can remove the connected accounts that are not necessary to connect to your Hotmail. Removing all of them will not be an issue.
- Refresh your mail and the new emails from other addresses will appear in the inbox.
Only Sign In on Outlook
Sometimes, the best method of how to fix Hotmail not receiving email is by signing in on Outlook. When you try to sign in from another Browser, it is so much hassle and you might not receive any mail in the future. Outlook is the best platform to access and do activity in your Hotmail.
However, it might not apply to all users. You are still able to access Hotmail from other browsers as well, even from your smartphone. In case the problem is hard to fix, you need an Outlook app specialized to log into your Hotmail account.
Updating The Address
If you are still using a long-time Hotmail account that you created more than a decade ago, it's time to update the address of your mail. You can have the same username, but the tail will be different. For example, Hotmail is replaced by outlook.
Microsoft made many changes because of this and your data in the Hotmail will be safe. Inbox sent and important messages will not change. However, the setting might be reset. You have to check the rules again in case you are comfortable with a particular setting.
Checking Windows Compatibility
Besides the methods of how to fix Hotmail not receiving email that has been mentioned above, you can recheck the compatibility of Windows. If you are using an illegal Windows, you will find this issue from the start. You can't use Hotmail on Outlook at all.
Second, the version of Windows is also an important thing to fix Hotmail account. The version under Windows 10 might fail you to receive the email in Hotmail. This is happening because of the limited action you can do with outdated software. So, you have to update your Windows version.
- Click Start from the Windows menu.
- Choose Settings and then click System.
- Click About and see the version of Windows on your personal computer.
- If Windows is not reliable anymore because of an outdated version, you can update the Windows and start running.
- Restart the computer and you can use Outlook to receive the mail again.
Checking The Junk Folder
It is possible if the mail you receive is not in the inbox but in a junk folder. Sometimes, the system will put the mail there, especially if the senders are not known to use the new account. If they detect it, Hotmail puts them there to ease you from deleting the emails.
It is better to check it before doing anything. However, it is not your fault. It is normal even for other platforms. The steps to check the junk folder are:
- Open the Hotmail account on Outlook.
- Check the left side of the screen and scroll through the folders option.
- Click junk email.
- The mail might be there.
- If you think that the emails are not junk mail, you can select the mail and then choose Not Junk at the top of the screen.
- Click confirm.
Later, if the same senders send the emails to you, their emails will be in your inbox because you have considered the senders as not spam accounts. The emails that you have selected will appear in the inbox of your Outlook. You can choose it as focused inbox mail if the content is important.
The Storage of Your Mail is Full
Another reason why you don’t receive any emails on your Hotmail account is that the storage of the account is full. Hotmail only provides the user with up to 15GB of storage. If you pass the storage, other emails will not be available in the inbox, even in the junk folder.
How to fix Hotmail not receiving email because of full storage? Check the steps below to fix the storage issue:
- Open your account from Outlook.
- Choose the settings option.
- Click General.
- Scroll and choose Storage.
- You will see the bar of your storage, how many GB used from the 15GB provided.
- If you see a full bar, it is time to delete some emails that you think are not important.
- Clean all junk mail.
- Clean the sent emails that are no longer in the receipt category.
You can upgrade the space to the Premium option, so the storage will be more than 15GB. Microsoft offers you up to 50GB on how to fix Hotmail not receiving email. You can unlock other premium features on Hotmail as well. If the bar is not full, it means the issue is not from storage.
Your Browser is Outdated
Another reason why you can’t receive any emails on Hotmail is your Browser is outdated. This applies to Chrome, Firefox, and even the browser Microsoft. You can’t get any emails if you use an outdated browser because the features are not enhanced yet.
There are differences when updating the browser on Firefox and Chrome. Here are the steps to update Chrome on your PC:
- Go to Chrome and click the icon of 3 dots on the screen. It is on the top right.
- Select Help and scroll until you find the About Google Chrome selection.
- Check the version of Google Chrome on your computer. If it’s outdated, click to update.
- Google Chrome will update itself to the latest version.
If you use Firefox, the method to update is different. The steps to fix Hotmail are:
- Open Firefox and choose the hamburger icon on the screen.
- Select Setting and Choose General on the tab list.
- You will see the Firefox Update status. Click check for updates to see it in detail.
- Firefox will update itself if it is outdated already.
- Restart Firefox and try to log into Hotmail.
Clearing The Cache on the Browser
We might browse many websites and we are not aware that some websites might be harmful to the browser. As a result, the browser cannot receive information anymore including the email on your Hotmail. How to fix Hotmail not receiving email is required to solve this issue.
The best method is clearing the cache on the browser, as well as the cookies. By clearing them all together, the browser will be clean from dangerous websites that might block certain information on the browser app. The steps that you’ve to do on Chrome browser are:
- Open Chrome and direct your cursor to click the icon of 3 dots on the screen.
- Choose More to see more options available from it.
- Select Clear Browse Data.
- Check the Cached Images And Files.
- Check Cookies and Other Data Sites.
- Select the range of your desired data to delete.
- Scroll the screen and press the button of Clear Data.
For Firefox, the steps are:
- Open Firefox and click the Hamburger icon on the screen.
- Click history and clear recent history.
- Check Cache and Cookies.
- Click OK to delete all data there.
Disabling Antivirus
Some antivirus installed on your personal computer may be the reason why you never receive any mail from Hotmail. The antivirus is good, but sometimes it interferes with emails, especially Hotmail. So, the perfect option is disabling antivirus on your personal computer. How to fix Hotmail not receiving email?
- Click Start from your personal computer.
- Type windows security on the search bar then open the app.
- You will see some options there and select Virus and Threat on the tabs available.
- Select Manage settings on the dialog box.
- On the right side, there will be a button to turn off the real-time protection. Click off.
Disabling Forwarding Email
Email forwarding features on Hotmail can be the reason why you don’t receive emails anymore. Though this feature is helpful because you can forward the emails to other accounts, this can be a preventive to get more emails from other addresses. Hence, you have to turn it off.
- Open Outlook and select the setting.
- Select View All Outlook.
- On the left side, you will see Mail and select it.
- After that, there will be some options on the right, and click Forwarding.
- The dialog box on the right will show you the option to enable and disable forwarding. Don’t tick the Enable Forwarding option.
- After that, click save to apply the change.
Get More Names on The Page
This is a unique option because the user has to put an additional name or alias. This only happened to the Hotmail user. Alias is another mail that you have to insert, after that, you will get the mail into your alias too. The only option is to put an alias with the tail outlook(dot)com.
- Open the Alias Page on the Microsoft page.
- Sign in to your Hotmail account if you haven’t logged in before.
- On the page of Add an Alias, choose to Create a new email address as an alias.
- Type the mail and the tail is Outlook.
- Click the button Add Alias.
Contact the Outlook Support
You can contact the Support from Outlook because they will help you resolve the issue if those methods are not working. You have to sign in on Outlook to reach them out. The steps to get some help from them are:
- Open Outlook and sign in.
- Click help or the question mark at the right top of the screen.
- Scroll down the screen and type cannot receive email on the search bar.
- Click yes under the question “still need help?”.
- Select contact the support agent.
- Write your issue on the box.
- Click confirm.
Why is Hotmail Still Relevant?
Even though not many users do use these emails anymore, Hotmail is still relevant because it is the mail from Microsoft. It is how Microsoft tries to rule the users. This mail doesn’t have many changes, especially the features. So, many users only create accounts for formality.
Microsoft also doesn’t ask many security questions to the users with verification as other platforms do. Many users can create Hotmail easily and fast. For this reason, it eases the users with some intention. Their password terms and conditions are also weak, so people use them easily.
Do People Use Hotmail Now?
Some people still use Hotmail to receive emails even though many users admit that they only receive junk mail almost every day. For security reasons, Hotmail is the platform where users avoid registering on other platforms because the features are too basic.
Besides, Microsoft also fails to protect the users’ security. Some people log into the account easily when they type the wrong password. One of the familiar issues for the users is how they never get any mail. This is why people learn how to fix Hotmail not receiving email.
Features to Improve Receiving Emails
Backing up feature
The feature of backing up is available for Hotmail and you can set it from Outlook. It is a preventive action to avoid data loss after you delete the emails in the inbox. The new emails will appear in the inbox, but you don’t lose another previous email because it is in the backup folder.
Importing the emails
Besides backing up the data, you can import the emails as well. There are many options to import Hotmail to other platforms such as Gmail, Yahoo Mail, iCloud, and Office 365. The practical option is via Office 365 because it’s faster and you don’t need separate action to do this as how to fix Hotmail not receiving email.
Removing duplicate emails
This feature is also available in Hotmail. It is useful because the duplicate mail will not be full in your mail folders. You can set this feature from Outlook. After that duplicate emails will automatically vanish from the inbox.
Updated Windows
The features will only appear if you have updated your Windows. So, it is better if you check the version of your Windows. The secure version is Windows 11 because it has advanced features to support Hotmail on your Outlook.
How to fix Hotmail not receiving email is easy by following the methods above. Those ways are working well to receive emails again in your inbox without opening the junk folder. Make sure you check the setting on Outlook regularly, so this case will not occur again on your Hotmail.
Morgan Azhari, the owner of PrinterUpdate.net, is a dedicated expert in the field of printers, leveraging a wealth of experience and education to create a platform that passionately shares insights and solutions.
With a goal to enhance the printer user experience, my vision for the website is to provide valuable content, making a positive impact on individuals navigating the complexities of printers.