What to do when your magic link email doesn't arrive

5 things to check when the email doesn't arrive

If your magic link email doesn't arrive, these are the 5 things to check first. Going through them in order helps you narrow down where it's getting stuck.

(1) It was sorted into your spam folder. (2) You made a typo in your email address. (3) Your email provider is slow to deliver it. (4) Your email provider's filtering blocked it. (5) Your mailbox has hit its storage limit.

This order follows what we think are the most likely causes first. Checking your spam folder takes little effort, so starting there is the quickest route. Below, we explain how to check for each cause and how to fix it.

Cause 1: check your spam folder

The first place to check is your spam (junk) folder. Email providers' filtering algorithms may sort mail from a domain you've never received mail from into spam. This is especially likely the first time you use a service.

In Gmail, open the "Spam" folder in the left menu. Typing the sender's email address into the search bar is also a reliable way to find it. If you find the magic link email in your spam folder, open it and click the "Not spam" button. After that, emails from the same sender are more likely to land in your inbox.

In Outlook (Hotmail), check the "Junk Email" folder. If you find it there, right-click the email and choose "Not junk." In Yahoo Mail, check the "Spam" folder, select the email, and press the "Not Spam" button.

For iCloud Mail, checking the "Junk" folder on the web version (icloud.com) is the reliable way. Depending on how the app's screens are laid out, the junk folder can be hard to find and easy to miss.

Causes 2 and 3: a typo in your email address, or slow delivery

If it's not in your spam folder either, the next thing to suspect is a typo in your email address. These patterns are especially common.

You type gmail.com as gmeil.com or gmai.com. You type .com instead of .co.jp in the domain part. You enter a full-width @ (the wide character used in Japanese input). There's a space before or after the email address.

Go back to the login screen, carefully enter your email address again, and send the magic link once more. Copying and pasting your address helps prevent typos.

If you entered it correctly and the email still doesn't arrive, your email provider may be slow to deliver it. A magic link email normally arrives shortly after it's sent, but it can take longer depending on how busy the mail servers are. Large email providers (Gmail, Outlook) in particular can have delays caused by the state of their server-side processing queues.

If it still hasn't arrived after 5 minutes, send the magic link again. The previous link is automatically disabled, and a new link is issued.

Cause 4: your email provider's filtering settings

If you use a work or school email address, your organization's mail server may block outside email based on its security policy. In that case, the email doesn't show up even in your spam folder, because the server rejects it before it reaches you.

There are 2 ways to deal with this. First, try signing up again with a personal email address (Gmail, Yahoo Mail, and so on). You can't change a company's email security policy yourself, so trying this first is the practical choice.

Second, ask your organization's IT administrator to add the sender's domain to an allowlist. However, whether an IT administrator will agree to allowlist a personal-use service like a question box depends on the organization.

If you use an email address from a Japanese mobile carrier (@docomo.ne.jp, @ezweb.ne.jp, @softbank.ne.jp), you also can't receive the email while the setting that rejects "PC mail" (email sent from regular internet services rather than phones) is turned on. In your carrier's email settings screen, add the sender's domain to your list of allowed senders, or change the setting to allow PC mail. However, carrier email settings can have many options and be hard to follow, so you may also want to sign up again with an address from a free email service.

Cause 5: your mailbox storage, and a last resort

If your mailbox has reached its storage limit, you can't receive new email. In Gmail, the free storage is shared across your whole Google account, so heavy use of Google Drive or Google Photos can affect whether you receive email. Check how much space you have left on your Google account's storage page, and delete files or emails you don't need to free up space.

If none of the above solves the problem, try signing up with a different email address. If you create a new account with a major free email service you don't normally use, you can test it without your existing inbox settings and filters getting in the way.

A magic link expires after 15 minutes. If the email took a long time to arrive, the link may have already expired. In that case, enter your email address again on the login screen and get a new magic link. You can resend it as many times as you need, but if you send several requests in a short time, you'll have to wait a little before trying again.