Inside the brain of a Geek: Three reasons why you may be causing those email errors.

Pam, why isn’t my email sending? There are a lot of reasons an email might get stuck in the Outbox or cause a bounce back message.  If you email server is working, check these three common issues and see if you are the reason the email may not be delivered.

1.     Attachments.  The biggest reason size.  Most email hosts can only handle emails between 10 - 15 MB.  Please note that is total email size, not the size of each attachment.  My rule of thumb anything over 10 MB and I use a file sharing service.

2.     Financial Information.  You should never send credit card, account numbers, or social security numbers via email.  Some systems can detect and block the sending or receiving of emails with this information. The system looks for 000-00-0000 or 1234567890123214 (16 # string) and blocks the email. .  You should not send it, and they don’t want it.

3.     Mailbox Size Restrictions.  Large data stores will slow down a system and that is why most companies put restrictions on mailbox sizes. If users go over those restrictions, they stop receiving emails and the sender gets a kickback message.  The users get a few “Mailbox Size Warning” emails prior to email receiving stopping.  If you got one of those warnings, stop what you are doing and archive some emails.