Not Receiving Email on Your Domain? Check These Causes in Order

When nobody's email reaches you, the cause is almost always in one of a handful of places, and they can be checked in the order a message actually travels: DNS tells the sender where to go, the receiving server decides whether the address exists, and filtering decides which folder it lands in. Working through them in that order turns "email is broken" into a specific fix, usually in under 15 minutes.

Quick answer

Send a test from a personal Gmail or Outlook account, then check webmail (not your phone) including the Spam folder. If nothing arrives, look up your MX records (the settings that tell the internet where to deliver email for your domain). It should point to mail.oqumail.com with priority 10 and nothing else. If MX is right, check that the exact address exists as a mailbox. If the sender got a bounce message, read it: the code in it names the cause.

Step 1: make a clean test

1. Send a short, normal message from a personal account at a big provider such as Gmail or Outlook.com. Avoid testing from another address on your own domain: some hosting setups deliver that mail internally and never touch DNS, which hides the real problem.
2. Check webmail first, not a phone or desktop app. If it is in webmail but not on your phone, the problem is the app's settings, not delivery.
3. Check the Spam folder in webmail.
4. Wait a few minutes. A first message from a new sender can be delayed by greylisting, where the receiving side deliberately asks the sender to retry.

Step 2: check the MX record

MX records tell every other mail server where to deliver mail for your domain. Look yours up with nslookup -type=mx yourdomain.com on Windows, or dig MX yourdomain.com +short on macOS and Linux. For OquMail the answer should be exactly one entry:

yourdomain.com.  MX  10 mail.oqumail.com.

If the lookup says the record was not found, or shows something else, fix it in your DNS panel. These are the mistakes behind nearly every "MX records (the settings that tell the internet where to deliver email for your domain) not found" result:

• No MX records (the settings that tell the internet where to deliver email for your domain) at all. Many domains come with none, and registrars sometimes delete it when you change nameservers. Add one at the root (host @) pointing to mail.oqumail.com, priority 10.
• The domain typed into the host field. Most panels add your domain automatically, so entering yourdomain.com there creates yourdomain.com.yourdomain.com. Use @ or leave the host blank.
• An IP address or a URL as the value. An MX value must be a hostname, with no https:// and no path.
• Old MX records left in place. If your previous provider's MX is still there, senders split mail between both. Delete every MX record that is not mail.oqumail.com. Our guide to multiple MX records explains why mixing providers loses mail.
• Editing the wrong DNS. If your domain's nameservers point to Cloudflare or your web host, records added at the registrar do nothing. Make the change wherever your nameservers point.

After a change, senders that cached the old answer keep using it until its TTL runs out, often an hour and occasionally up to a day. How long DNS propagation takes covers the timings.

Step 3: rule out the old host

If MX is correct but some mail still never arrives, a previous host may be catching it before it leaves. The classic case is cPanel web hosting: when your website and your old email lived on the same server, that server still believes it handles your mail and delivers contact-form messages and mail from other sites it hosts locally, into an old mailbox you no longer check. In cPanel, open Email Routing and set it to Remote Mail Exchanger. Also remove any forwarding rules you set up at the old provider.

Step 4: confirm the address exists

• In OquMail, the domain must show as verified, and mail is only accepted for addresses that exist as active mailboxes. Mail to anything else is refused with a 550 error at the door, so the sender gets a bounce rather than the message disappearing.
• Check the exact spelling of the address the sender used, including the domain. A one-letter typo in the domain sends mail somewhere else entirely.
• If the mailbox is full, new mail is refused with a temporary 452 error. The sender's server retries for a while and then bounces it. Clear space and ask them to resend.
• On the free plan you get up to 15 mailboxes. If you need sales@ and support@ as well as named people, create each as its own mailbox.

Step 5: check spam filtering

If the message arrived but went to Spam, the sender's own authentication is usually the reason. OquMail files a message into Spam when it fails DMARC under a policy the sender's domain asked receivers to enforce (quarantine or reject). That is the sender's DNS to fix, not yours. Move the message to the Inbox with Not spam, and if it keeps happening, point the sender to our guide on SPF, DKIM and DMARC failures.

Step 6: read the bounce

If the sender received a bounce, ask them to forward it. The three-digit code near the top tells you which step failed:

• 550 5.1.1, user unknown or mailbox unavailable: the address does not exist or the mailbox is not active (step 4).
• 452 or 552, mailbox full or over quota: clear space (step 4).
• No mail server or MX not found for domain: the MX records (the settings that tell the internet where to deliver email for your domain) is missing or wrong (step 2).
• Connection timed out: the sender cannot reach the server named in your MX. Re-check that the MX value is exactly mail.oqumail.com.

Common questions

Sending works but receiving does not. How?

Sending and receiving use different records. Sending depends on your mail server and your SPF and DKIM; receiving depends only on MX. A domain with perfect SPF and DKIM but no MX records (the settings that tell the internet where to deliver email for your domain) can send all day and receive nothing.

Mail from some people arrives and from others it does not. Why?

Usually caching or a leftover record. Senders that cached your old MX still deliver to the old host until the cache expires, and a stray second MX record sends a share of mail to the wrong place permanently. Delete any extra MX records and give it a day.

Will I lose mail sent while my MX was wrong?

Mail sent to a domain with no working MX is retried by the sender for a period, typically up to a few days, and then bounced back to them. Mail delivered to an old provider sits in the old mailbox, so check there before closing that account.