Guides / Gmail not receiving email in Google Workspace: what to check

Last reviewed 5 Oct 2026

Gmail not receiving email in Google Workspace: what to check

Google Workspace mailbox not getting email? Check spam, filters and storage, then admins use Email Log Search, MX records, routing rules and quarantine.

"I'm not getting any emails." In a Google Workspace company, that sentence covers spam filtering, a filter someone made two years ago, a full mailbox, a broken DNS record, and the occasional real Gmail incident. Work it from the user outwards.

Is it Google?

Check the Google Workspace page, which reads Google's official Workspace Status Dashboard. If Gmail shows an incident, mail is usually delayed, not lost; it is queued and delivered later. If the dashboard is clear and colleagues are receiving mail, look at this mailbox.

User-level checks

1. Search All Mail. Search for the sender's address. The message may have been filtered, archived or labelled rather than missing.
2. Spam. Check the Spam folder. Mark legitimate messages as "Not spam" to teach the filter.
3. Filters. Settings → See all settings → Filters and Blocked Addresses. Look for filters that delete, archive or forward messages, and for blocked senders.
4. Forwarding. On the Forwarding and POP/IMAP tab, check that mail is not being forwarded elsewhere with "delete Gmail's copy".
5. Storage. When an account runs out of storage, it stops receiving email. Check the storage indicator; Drive files and Photos count too.
6. Ask the sender for the bounce. If they got a non-delivery message, its error text tells you exactly where it failed. Paste the headers of any message that did arrive late into Google's Messageheader tool to see the delay hop by hop.

Admin-level checks (Google Admin console)

• Email Log Search. In the Google Admin console, Reporting → Email Log Search. Search by sender, recipient and date. It shows whether Google received the message and what happened next: delivered, marked as spam, quarantined, bounced or rerouted. If Google has no record, the message never reached Google.
• MX records. Use the Check MX tool. Mail only reaches Google if your domain's MX records point to Google's mail servers. A website migration or DNS provider change that wiped the MX records is a very common cause of "nobody is getting email" across a whole company.
• Domain renewal. An expired domain stops mail. Check the registrar.
• Routing and compliance rules. Apps → Google Workspace → Gmail settings. Rules can reject, quarantine or reroute mail. Look for anything added recently.
• Admin quarantine. Messages held by a rule wait in the admin quarantine until released.
• Google Groups. If the address is a group, the group may not allow posts from outside the organisation, or may need moderation.
• Licence and user status. A suspended user, or one without a Gmail licence, does not receive mail.
• Split delivery. If some mailboxes still live on another system, routing may be sending this user's mail there.

The other direction

If your messages are not reaching other people's Gmail accounts, look at your sending domain: SPF, DKIM and DMARC records. Google tightened its requirements for bulk senders in 2024, and invoicing or newsletter tools that send as your domain need those records set up properly.

When to escalate

Contact Google Workspace support when Email Log Search shows Google accepted mail but it is not appearing, or when the Status Dashboard shows a Gmail incident affecting your organisation. Include message IDs from the logs and times with time zone. If Google has no record of the message, the problem is the sender's side or your DNS, not Gmail.

Related status pages

• Google Workspace / Gmail
• Google Cloud

Related guides

• Outlook disconnected or not syncing: is it Microsoft or you?
• How to tell if a service is down or it's just you
• Why a site works for everyone else but not me

FAQ

Why is my Gmail not receiving emails?

Common causes are messages going to Spam, a filter archiving or deleting them, forwarding with Gmail's copy deleted, a full storage quota, or, for a whole company, missing or wrong MX records.

Does Gmail stop receiving email when storage is full?

Yes. When an account runs out of storage, it cannot receive new email until space is freed or more storage is added. Drive and Photos use the same storage.

How can a Google Workspace admin trace a missing email?

Use Email Log Search in the Google Admin console. Search by sender, recipient and date to see whether Google received the message and whether it was delivered, marked as spam, quarantined or bounced.

How do I know if Gmail is down?

Check Google's Workspace Status Dashboard, which our Google Workspace page reads. During real incidents, mail is usually delayed and delivered later rather than lost.