Email isn't sending or receiving

Applies to: All plans: the mailboxes included with your hosting, and Professional Email (Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace).

Work down this checklist from the top. Most mail problems show up as one of the symptoms below, and a bounce message usually names the cause, so keep any bounce that you or a sender received. First, check which kind of mailbox you have:

Mailboxes included with your hosting run on our server. You manage them on the service page in the client area (Services -> My Services) under Email Accounts, or in cPanel.
Professional Email runs at Microsoft or Google. You manage it in the Microsoft 365 admin centre or the Google Workspace admin console.

On a Managed plan, we troubleshoot your mailboxes for you on request. If your Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace seats were ordered through us, we set up and check SPF, DKIM and DMARC for you, on any hosting plan. Start a chat and we'll work through it with you.

1. Your mail app can't connect, or your password is refused

A quick test first: sign in to webmail (the Webmail button on the service page). If webmail works and your app doesn't, the mailbox is fine, and the cause is the app or your network.

The app can't connect at all. It times out without an error, often from one office or one network only. The usual cause is that our server's firewall has blocked your network's address after something from it tripped a security rule, such as repeated failed logins on your own website. From that network, open your website or https://node11.maxinodes.com:2096 in a browser and pass the security check; mail apps connect again within a minute or two. Meanwhile, webmail on a phone using mobile data still works.
Your password is refused, even the right one. After 10 failed sign-ins within 5 minutes, sign-ins to that mailbox are blocked for 5 minutes. The cause is almost always one phone or laptop that keeps trying an old saved password. Update the password on every device (phones, tablets, laptops, Outlook profiles), then wait 5 minutes.
The settings are wrong. The username is the full email address. Use SSL/TLS on ports 993 (IMAP), 995 (POP3) and 465 (SMTP), or STARTTLS on port 587. Plain-text sign-ins on ports 143 and 110 are refused. If the app warns about the certificate for mail.yourdomain.com, use node11.maxinodes.com as the server name until a certificate for mail.yourdomain.com is in place.
Professional Email: add the account as a Microsoft 365 / Exchange or Google account and sign in; the provider supplies the settings. Sign-in and licence problems are fixed in the provider's admin console.

Step by step: My mail app can't connect, or keeps asking for my password and Mail app settings for your mailbox (IMAP, POP3, SMTP).

2. Someone writing to you got a bounce

The bounce (a "delivery failed" notice) tells the sender why their message didn't arrive. These notices are standard server texts, in English.

What the sender sees	What it means	What to do
"Mailbox is full"	The mailbox has reached its size limit, or your plan's whole storage is full. Incoming mail is refused until there is room.	Delete or archive mail, or raise the mailbox's size up to your plan's maximum. See What happens when a mailbox or your plan's storage is full.
The address or user doesn't exist	There is no mailbox or forwarder for that address. Catch-all addresses, which collect mail sent to unknown names, are off by default, so such mail is refused.	Check the spelling, then create the mailbox (How to create a mailbox) or a forwarder (How to forward email (forwarders)).
A refusal because the sending server is listed as a source of spam	Our server refuses mail from known spam sources when they connect, before any message is accepted.	Only the sender's provider can get its server off the list. If you think it's a mistake, ask the sender to forward the bounce to us.

3. You got a bounce when sending

What the bounce says	What it means	What to do
"has exceeded the max emails per hour"	Your domain has sent more than its hourly sending limit, and mail sent by your website (contact forms, order emails) counts toward the same limit. Just over the limit, messages are queued and retried; further over it, they are returned with this bounce, which ends "Message discarded".	Wait for the next hour and send again. Newsletters and other bulk mail are not allowed from mailboxes: use a dedicated sending service for them. Limits per plan: Mailbox and sending limits.
"Sender Domain Not Found"	You sent from a domain or subdomain that doesn't exist in public DNS yet, such as a new domain that isn't pointed anywhere, or a staging subdomain. Our outbound mail relay refuses such mail.	Send from an address on a domain that resolves publicly. Once the domain or subdomain has public DNS records (for example, once your domain points to us), this refusal stops.
A refusal with the code 5.7.1 that mentions spam	Our outbound mail relay checks outgoing mail and refused this message because it looked like spam.	Check the message for links, attachments or wording typical of spam, and forward the whole bounce to us. If you didn't send it, the mailbox or your website may be compromised: change the mailbox password at once and tell us.

4. Mail arrives, but in Junk

Included mailboxes: our server scores every incoming message and files likely spam into the Junk folder. Look there in webmail or your mail app, and move a wanted message back to the Inbox. See Spam filtering and your Junk folder.
Professional Email: look in Junk at outlook.office.com (Microsoft 365) or in Spam at mail.google.com (Google Workspace).
Your own mail lands in recipients' spam: each receiving provider decides this for itself, so start with SPF, DKIM and DMARC (section 6).

5. Nothing arrives at all

Your MX doesn't point here. Mail for the included mailboxes must be delivered to mx.maxinodes.com. If your domain's MX record still names your old host or another provider, mail goes there instead. Check it in the client area DNS manager, or with your DNS provider if your DNS is elsewhere (see The DNS records your email needs).
The mailbox didn't exist when the nameservers were switched. Mail sent to it in between bounced as addressed to an unknown user. Create the mailbox now and ask senders to send again. Moving mail from another host: How to move your existing email to Maxinodes.
The hosting service is suspended, for example over an unpaid invoice. Mailbox sign-ins are locked, sending stops, and incoming mail is held and retried for about 4 days, then returned to its senders. Pay within that time and the held mail is released, with nothing lost. See Why was my payment declined or my account suspended?
A DNS change is still spreading. After you change a record or your nameservers, allow minutes to a few hours, occasionally up to 24–48 hours, depending on the record's TTL.
Professional Email: the MX must point at your provider (Microsoft 365 uses <tenant>.mail.protection.outlook.com; Google Workspace uses smtp.google.com, or the older ASPMX records), the domain must show as verified in the provider's admin console, and the mailbox needs an active licence. An unverified domain or an unlicensed seat fails without a visible error.

6. Check SPF, DKIM and DMARC

These records tell receiving servers that mail really comes from your domain. When they are missing or wrong, mail gets refused or filed as spam.

Included mailboxes, DNS on our nameservers: the zone we create for your hosting holds our mail records (MX, SPF, DKIM and DMARC), unless your domain's mail was with another provider at the time, in which case we kept that provider's records. Outgoing mail is authenticated with SPF, DKIM and DMARC. On a new domain, DKIM signing starts within about a day. If a record is missing from your zone in the client area DNS manager, ask us to add it.
Included mailboxes, DNS elsewhere: add the records listed in The DNS records your email needs, and ask us for your domain's DKIM key.
Professional Email: the SPF and DKIM values are specific to your tenant (for SPF, v=spf1 include:spf.protection.outlook.com -all for Microsoft 365, or v=spf1 include:_spf.google.com ~all for Google Workspace). Always copy them from the Microsoft 365 admin centre or the Google Workspace setup wizard, never from another tenant. Start DMARC at p=none.
One SPF record per domain. If you also send through another service, merge everything into a single SPF record: with two SPF records, the check fails.
Edit records in the client area, not in the cPanel zone editor, which does not control live DNS here.
Website mail with Professional Email. If your mailboxes are at Microsoft or Google and mail sent by your website (contact forms, order emails) bounces or lands in spam, tell us, and we check your domain's records for mail sent from our server.

More detail: How to set up SPF, DKIM and DMARC correctly.

Still stuck?

Contact us with the address involved, the exact bounce text (forward the whole bounce if you can), when it happened, and whether it's an included mailbox or Professional Email. Never include a password. See What to include when you contact support.