Common Email Problems

Introduction

There are usually five reasons why email accounts either do not work or stop working:  

1. There is a problem with the server
2. The email account is not correctly set up on the device it is being used on
3. Your mailbox is full
4. Your broadband provider
5. Your attachments are too big

The first reason is actually quite rare.   The second reason usually accounts for most of the issues you might face.  And it can even happen when noting appears to have changed, which is both confusing and frustrating.   Before contacting us for support there is a simple way to determine which of the reasons it may be.

There is a problem with the server

First of all you will need to login to your Webmail account.  Our Knowledge Base article ‘Using The Webmail Facility‘ will explain how to.   If you can access your emails, plus send and receive them, in Webmail that means:  

1. The server is working fine and
2. You can still deal with your emails.

The email account is not correctly set up on the device it is being used on

This can be for all sorts of reasons such as:  

• Your email client software was updated and knocked out your account settings
• Your mobile phone’s operating system and/or app updates knocked out your account settings
• You have a new email client, computer or phone and have not set them up correctly
• You asked us for a password reset but did not change your email settings

The internet can be surprisingly fragile at times so you will need to examine your settings and make sure you follow any instructions closely.  As email clients and devices vary so much we cannot tell you exactly how to do this.  

Google and YouTube will most likely be your best bet to find instructions for your particular setup. Having said that we have created a help article How To Set Up Your New Email Address(es) which details some of the most common settings.

Your mailbox is full

Because we use a dedicated server we allocate a certain amount of space for each of your email accounts.  This should easily hold up to 1000 emails, however, if you do not regularly delete old emails then your mailbox can reach its limits.

If you have set your email up using IMAP as opposed to POP, then if you are using Outlook, you may need to ‘purge’ your deleted emails, as IMAP keeps them on the server, even after you have emptied your deleted folder.  This is so you can recover any of your deleted emails.

How to do this will depend on the version of Outlook, for instance Office 365 home or business edition, Outlook 2016 or 2018, etc.   Usually you will see a ‘recover items recently removed from this folder’ option within the email header pane of the deleted folder.

When you click on this, it will open up a new window showing a list of your recently deleted emails. In the bottom left corner there will be two check boxes, one to restore emails and the other to ‘purge’ the emails. Select the purge option and follow the on screen instructions.   This article on the Microsoft forum may or may not help you.

Please also remember that your ‘sent’ emails will also contribute to your email storage usage if you are using us for your incoming and outgoing emails. So this folder was also need to be purged regularly.

You can also check your storage usage by logging into your Webmail account.  You will see in the top bar when logged in, two figures which is the amount of storage being used used and the amount of storage your email account has in total (default is 1GB).

For instance it may say 346MB/1GB, which would mean you have will have 654MB of storage still free.   If you click on these two numbers, it will give you a break down of where the storage is being used. For instance inbox, sent folder, junk folder, trash, etc.  You can also use this facility to permanently delete your emails, as this is not running as an IMAP style of email client.

To do this select the emails from the inbox/sent/junk/archive folders and delete them, then remember to go to the trash folder and select them all and them delete them.

Deleted emails still in your trash folder, are still using storage space until deleted from this folder.

Your broadband provider

Your ISP may have blocked your email address.  ISPs operate ‘blacklists’, which are lists of domains and IP addresses of spammers.  Sometimes genuine email accounts end up on these blacklists.  In particular when your domain and/or email address is new.

Additionally your ISP may not allow you to use your own domain for outgoing mail.  For example companies like BT and TalkTalk may still insist you use their outgoing server.  You can contact them and see if they will allow our servers.

Your attachments are too big

If you are trying to email large files then there is a strong chance they are too big.  You are much better off using a file transfer option.  We would recommend WeTransfer.com

Obviously if you cannot access Webmail and the server is the problem then open a support issue.