Why your email couldn't be deliveredUpdated a month ago
Sometimes Gorgias is unable to deliver your email messages. When this happens, Gorgias receives an error message from your email provider, like Gmail or Outlook, that explains why your email was not delivered.
You can find the error message in your ticket conversation when an email fails to deliver.
- The recipient's email address is invalid or does not exist
- Your message was rejected or blocked by the recipient's email provider
- The recipient's email provider could not reached
- You've reached a limit for sending emails or attachments
Why emails don’t reach your recipient
When an email can’t be delivered, Gorgias gives you an error message in your email conversation thread. Review the details of the message to understand why your email did not reach its recipient.
Here are some common reasons (we explain these in more detail below):
- The email address does not exist, or you've misspelled the recipient’s email address
- The recipient’s email provider is temporarily unavailable
- The email is too large for the recipient’s inbox
- The recipient’s inbox is full
- The recipient’s email settings do not allow email from you
- The email is rejected or blocked by the recipient’s email provider, which can happen when:
- You send an email to a large group of people
- Your message is flagged as spam or contains suspiciously text or links
For less common, rarer kinds of errors you may receive a more technical error message. Don’t worry — connect with our Support Team. We can help you investigate the problem.
The email address is invalid or does not exist
Your recipient’s email address may no longer exist, or there is a typo in the address.
What you can do:
- Check for common mistakes in the email address:
- Quotation marks
- Dots at the end of the address
- Spaces before or after an address
- Spelling errors
- Search for a different way to contact your recipient (for example, a social channel like LinkedIn). If possible, ask the recipient to confirm their email address.
Your message was rejected or blocked by the recipient’s email provider
Email providers like Gmail or Outlook often have policies that try to prevent spam, fraud attempts like phishing, or to stop sensitive information from being shared in an email.
Businesses with their own email addresses @companyname.com, may also create policies to safeguard private information, like restricting emails from external senders.
If you’re sending a message to a large number of recipients, it may get flagged as spam. Your email may also get flagged if it contains suspicious links or text asking for personal information.
What you can do:
- Remove links to websites or text asking for personal information
- Try sending your message again later. The recipient’s mailbox may have exceeded the number of emails it can receive at one time
- Ask Gorgias’s Support Team to check that your email address is verified
- Your recipient’s email provider may only accept email from verified (trustyworthy) senders
- Gorgias can check whether your email domain (
@yourcompany.com) is unverified or has been added to a blocklist - Your email administrator (a person who manages email for your company or business) can use this information to fix verification problems for your email address
- Your recipient may unknowingly have a security policy that is blocking your message. They may need to add your email address to an “allowlist” to receive messages from you.
The recipient’s email provider could not be reached
Sometimes Gorgias is unable to connect with your recipient’s email provider to deliver your message.
The recipient’s email inbox may be temporarily unavailable or disabled. In rare cases, the recipient may have enabled email forwarding settings that have created issues for sending and receiving new messages — for example, an email loop caused by automated replies.
What you can do:
- Check if there are any mistakes in the recipient’s email address
- Try sending the email again later. The recipient’s mailbox may have exceeded the number of emails it can receive at one time
- If possible, find a different way to contact your recipient. Ask the recipient to confirm their email address
- You may also need to ask if the person who manages email for their business or company can add your email address to an “allowlist”
You’ve reached a limit for sending email or attachments
Email providers like Gmail or Outlook place limits on the amount of email messages that you can send per day, and the number of recipients per message.
There may also be limits on the size of attachments you can send in an email. Learn about attachment limits for Gmail and Outlook.
What you can do
- Double check the sending limits for your email provider. Limits may differ depending on the type of account you have (for example, a free email account versus Google Workspace or Microsoft 365)
- Learn about Gmail sending limits
- Learn about Outlook sending limits
- If you’ve reached a sending limit, wait and try again later. You should be able send email again within several hours
- Enable Send emails via Gorgias. If you regularly send high volumes of email and reach Gmail or Outlook’s email limits, you can enable Send email via Gorgias setting to avoid issues delivering email.
- Check the size of your attachment. If you exceed the size limit, reduce the file size or share it using a different method.
Troubleshooting for advanced users
If you have some technical know-how, you can use a trusted email checker tool like mxtoolbox.com and Email Checker to investigate problems with your email.
These tools are especially helpful if you need to check your domain for verification issues that prevent your email address from being seen as trustworthy by other email providers. You can also check whether your address has been added to any known blocklists.
If you work for a brand with its own email address (@companyname.com), information from these tools can help someone like an IT manager or email expert fix email deliverability problems.
Get more help
If you’ve reviewed the steps in this article and still need help, contact Gorgias Support. Please provide us with the following details:
- the error message you received
- the email address that you’re using to send a message
- your recipient’s email address
- the ticket number # where you received the error
- a copy of the email’s header
- an email header provides a list of technical details about the message that can help us troubleshoot. Learn how to find your email header in Gmail and Outlook.
