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Are You Able to Send Emails but Not Receive?

If you can send but cannot receive emails, there are several likely causes to investigate. These include email and disk quota issues, your DNS settings, email filters, email delivery method, and your email client settings.

What You Should Check if You're Experiencing This Issue

  • Is your email address already added to your cPanel?
    Generally, you will need to add your email address to your hosting account first for you to use your hosting’s email. Please check out this article on creating email accounts in cPanel: How Do I Create Email Accounts in cPanel?
     
  • Are your MX records properly set up in your email host?
    An MX record identifies which server is going to handle your emails. Upon setting up your domain name, you may want to set up your MX records too. Here is a guide on setting up your MX records: How to Set Up Your MX (Mail Exchange) Record.
     
  • Does your email routing match your MX records?
    Email routing or the email delivery method is configured in your cPanel, depending on how you set up your MX records. If a different provider is hosting your emails, you may want to change your email routing to Remote and set it up to Local if you wish HostGator to manage your emails. For more information, please check out the article, Local, Backup, and Remote Mail Exchanger.
     
  • Are you using email programs like Gmail, Outlook, or Yahoo Mail?
    Aside from adding your email account in your cPanel, you have to make sure that the settings in your email program match the ones in your hosting account. You may want to check your correct email settings in this article: Email Connection Settings.
     
  • Has anyone contacted you saying they're getting a bounceback email when trying to send you an email?
    Bounceback messages are most often the best way to determine what may be causing your emails not to work. If someone tells you their emails are not being sent to your email address, ask them what bounceback email they are getting. That way, we will have a better idea of what could be going on with your emails and start troubleshooting from there. This is a good read: Mail Policy and Limits.
     
  • Have you already checked your email directories – Spam, Junk, or customized mail folders?
    Your emails may be received but are being stored in your customized mail folders or your spam folder. The emails you think are missing may have been identified as spam or junk and might have been moved to the Spam or Junk folders. Read this article for more information: Why Am I Getting Spammed and How to Prevent It?
     
  • Did you set up email filters in your cPanel or email client (Gmail, Outlook, or Mac Mail)?
    Your cPanel and email clients have their own email filters. You may want to check if you’ve set up one if you notice you are not getting any emails. You can check out these articles to know more about the email filter SpamAssassin in your cPanel: How to Use SpamAssassin and Custom Account and User Level Filters.
     
  • Is your email account already over its quota?
    Each email account is created with a set quota, which is the amount of disk space allotted to a particular email address for email storage. This quota was set when you created or modified the email account in cPanel and can be set to be unlimited or to a fixed size. You may want to check the email quota in your cPanel. Here is your guide: How to Adjust Email Quota in cPanel.
     
  • Is your cPanel account already over its quota?
    Depending on what kind of hosting package you have, your disk space varies too. Another possible cause of not receiving emails is that the entire cPanel is over its allotted disk or inode quota. You may need to adjust your disk space to start receiving emails again. Please note that adjusting disk spaces can only be done in your WHM (Reseller, VPS, or Dedicated hosting plans). This does not apply to Shared web hosting. Please check out this helpful article: How to Adjust Disk Space Quotas in WHM.

So Your Emails Used To Work but Then They Stopped Working?

There are many possible reasons why you are not suddenly receiving any emails. Please click the links below to know why and how to resolve these email issues.

No? You Mean Your Emails Never Worked at All?

If your emails never worked on our servers since you've set it up, it may be due to the following reasons.

How To Adjust Email Quota in cPanel

The most common reason incoming email is not received is due to the email account exceeding its quota. To resolve this, you can delete emails or adjust the email quota in your cPanel.

To test if your email account has exceeded its quota:

  1. Send an email to the email address in question. If the mailbox is full, you will receive a bounceback message that the disk space has been exceeded.
  2. Check the email address' quota by clicking the Email Accounts icon in cPanel.

To change your email account's quota:

  1. Log in to cPanel.
  2. Navigate to the Email section, then select Email Accounts.

    cPanel - Email Accounts

  3. Locate the email account which is not receiving emails.
  4. Click the Manage link next to the selected email address.

    cPanel - Manage Email Accounts

  5. On the next page, you will find details about the selected email account. Look for the Storage section and either type in the new quota or select the Unlimited option.

    HostGator cPanel Email Change Storage

  6. Click Update Email Settings to save.
Need help in adjusting your email account's quota? Please contact us via phone or Live Chat so we can assist you.

How to Adjust cPanel Account Over Quota

If you have a Reseller, VPS, or Dedicated hosting plan, you'll have access to WHM and the ability to create multiple cPanels. When you create those cPanels, you can set a storage limit or quota for each of them. If a cPanel has exceeded its limit, then you won't be able to perform most tasks. You must clear out some space or adjust the quota before you can resume receiving emails. In the steps below, we'll walk you through checking the quotas and how to adjust them.

Important Notes:

  • This step applies only to customers with Reseller, VPS, or Linux Dedicated hosting packages. HostGator Shared packages have unmetered disk space.
  • While our Shared hosting plans include unmetered storage, it is possible to have too many files and folders, which are also referred to as inodes. If you have exceeded the inode limit, you will need to reduce your inode count before receiving any more emails.

To check for accounts over quota:

  1. Log in to WHM.
  2. Navigate to the search pane on the left-hand side and search for Show Accounts Over Quota.

    WHM - Show Accounts Over Quota

  3. You will see a list of cPanels created under your WHM. If disk space is maxed out or exceeded, you will need to raise the disk space quota on the cPanel's package by changing the package in WHM or by creating a new package and assigning it to the cPanel.

To change your cPanel's disk space:

  1. Log in to WHM.
  2. Navigate to the search pane on the left-hand side and search for Quota Modification.

    WHM - Quota Modification

  3. Select the username or cPanel primary domain you wish to modify.
  4. Adjust the disk space Quota as desired.
  5. Click Save.

If you want to increase the disk spaces of multiple cPanels, you may want to modify the package they are currently in.

Click Here to Know How to Change your WHM Package

To accomplish this change:

  1. In the left-side menu of your WHM, search for Edit A Package.

    WHM - Edit a Package

  2. Select the package to be edited.
  3. Click the Edit button.
  4. Make the desired changes in the Disk Quota (MB) field or click Unlimited.
  5. Scroll down and click Save Changes.

For information on upgrading, downgrading, and adding new packages, please read:

How to Configure Email Filters

The cPanel allows you to filter your emails to help you manage your incoming emails. It is very helpful, especially if you do not wish to see spam emails. Here are helpful articles to guide you on how to check and set up your email filters:

Follow the instructions below if your email never worked on our servers.

How To Configure Email DNS Records and Email Routing

The MX records are used to route your email to the correct server so that you can send and receive emails. Incorrect DNS records can affect how your emails are routed, like how a letter won't make it to the intended person if it is sent to the incorrect address.

In these articles, we will walk you through the steps in setting up your emails’ DNS records (MX records):

and email routing:

In addition to using HostGator-hosted email, you also have the option of using Google Workspace or Microsoft 365 (formerly Office 365). If they are not set up properly, you may not be able to send or receive emails. In the guides below, we walk you through making sure these services are set up properly.

What are Email Client or Email Program Settings

As you host your emails here at HostGator, you have the option to use either the HostGator webmail or an email client or program.

Customers using Microsoft-related email services (Outlook.com, Hotmail.com, MSN.com, and Live.com) may note a problem with receiving emails from hostgator.com addresses via these services while still receiving messages from elsewhere. This can be resolved by following the steps found in this article: 

If you are using other third-party mail clients (Gmail, Yahoo, MacMail, etc.), make sure that the incoming mail server settings and ports are correct. You can check your email settings in these articles: