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An email is missing, bounced, or going to spam

Updated by 2Fifteen Tech

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A missing email, a delivery failure, and a message placed in spam are different problems. These checks help narrow down what happened.

If you cannot find a message

  1. Confirm you are checking the expected work account or shared mailbox.
  2. Search by the sender, subject, and approximate date. Search across folders rather than only the Inbox.
  3. In Gmail, include Mail & Spam & Trash in the search options. Also check All Mail for archived messages.
  4. In Outlook, check Junk Email, Deleted Items, Archive, and the Other tab if Focused Inbox is enabled.
  5. If you normally use a desktop or phone app, check the mailbox in your browser. A message visible online but missing in one app may be a sync or display issue.

If you recognize a legitimate message in Spam or Junk, use the mail app's Not spam or Not junk option. If it looks suspicious, use our suspicious email guide instead.

If you received a bounce or delivery failure

Keep the complete failure message, including the error code and affected recipient. Check the recipient's spelling against a known correct address. Do not repeatedly resend the same message while the error is unresolved.

A bounce can describe an address, policy, size, or delivery problem. The exact error matters; a screenshot of only the subject usually is not enough.

If your email is going to someone else's spam

Ask the recipient to check Spam or Junk. If the message is there, ask them to preserve the original so support can review its headers if needed. If only one recipient or organization is affected, include that detail.

A message can pass email-authentication checks and still be classified as spam. We need the actual delivery evidence before identifying the cause. No bounce by itself does not prove that a message reached the Inbox or was read.

What to send 2Fifteen Tech support

  • The exact sender and recipient email addresses.
  • The subject, approximate date and time, and time zone.
  • Whether this affects one message, one sender or recipient, or several people.
  • The complete bounce or error, if you received one.
  • Where you searched and whether the message appears in the web mailbox.

If you have the message, include its Message ID using our Gmail guide or Outlook guide. If the message never arrived, tell us that; you do not need to find an ID for a message you cannot access. We may ask the sender or recipient for the original headers.

Official instructions

Last reviewed: October 30, 2026.