Outlook§3.3
Emails not sending or receiving
Outlook is stuck — emails won't go out or new emails aren't arriving.
Step-by-step fix · 5 steps
- 1
Press F9 or click Send / Receive → Send/Receive All Folders to force a manual sync.
- 2
Check the status bar at the bottom-right of Outlook — it should say 'Connected'. If it says 'Disconnected' or 'Working Offline', click the Send/Receive tab and turn off 'Work Offline'.
- 3
Restart Outlook.
- 4
Restart the laptop.
- 5
Use Outlook on the web as a fallback: open Chrome → go to outlook.office.com → sign in with your work account.
Tip
If Outlook search stops returning results, rebuild the search index: Control Panel → Indexing Options → Advanced → Rebuild. Keep the laptop on and plugged in while it runs — it can take a few hours.