Summary: One of the casualties of the war against spam is reliable email deliverability. Sometimes mail simply never shows up. We'll look at what can be done.
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This turns out to be a fairly common problem, and not just for Hotmail. Yahoo and other email services seem to suffer the same problem from time to time.
And no, I know of nothing you can do.
Strike that, I do know of one thing you can do, but you won't like it.
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As you've described, the scenario is very, very simple:
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Someone sends you an email
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You don't get it
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The sender doesn't get any indication that the mail wasn't delivered
It's the worst of all possible scenarios - you can't know what you didn't receive, and the sender has no indication that nothing was delivered. Neither of you realize that there's any problem until much, much later.
It's the most frustrating of all possible scenarios.
And to cover the stock recommendations:
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Check your junk mail folder
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Clear any filters you have set that might automatically act on incoming email
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Add the sender's email address to your address book. On some email providers this acts as a kind of "whitelist", or at least increases the probability that email from that person will get delivered
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Make sure that the sender isn't sending something that "looks like" spam. For example if his email is talking about enlarging body parts, then it's highly likely to get filtered as spam. Sadly it doesn't have to be that blatant - legitimate messages about breast cancer, free offers, business opportunities and more can often be confused with, and filtered as, spam
And it really is all about spam. Chances are that your email provider, Hotmail in this case, is simply being overly aggressive about filtering spam. (And unfortunately in doing so, there are actually reasonable arguments for not sending a bounce message - many spammers actually rely on bounce messages to either legitimize an email address, or to actually carry their spam message.)
So, what can you really do?
Aside from what I've listed so far, nothing.
I wish that email providers, particularly the free ones, gave you more direct control over what is, and is not, spam to you. Truly paying attention to your address book would go a long way to solving the issue, but as you can see that's not happening consistently.
So what's the one thing to do that I said you won't like?
Use a different email provider.
Stop using Hotmail.
Find an email provider that is more responsive to its customers needs. GMail currently appears to be the best of the free services, but email reliability is also worth paying for, if that's what it takes.
Related:
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Ask Leo! - How do I get rid of all this spam?!?!
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Ask Leo! - Why am I not getting all messages sent to the mailing list I'm on?
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Ask Leo! - Why is my mail to this person not getting through?
Article C3382 - May 14, 2008
I am not receiving email from my daughter and friend both of whom I have written to for a long time. They are not receiving mine either.It upsets me.
Posted by: Corrine Barlow at November 16, 2008 2:09 PMHi, I've can no longer get emails from my dad, it doesn't matter if he replies to one I've sent him or if he sends me a new email, or even if I'm cc'd in - everyone else gets emails from him and I THINK I'm getting emails from everyone else ok just not from my dad. I've checked he's in my safe list. He gets no notification that emails haven't reached me. I really don't know what to do!
Posted by: Liane Durkin at November 18, 2008 5:05 AMLiane.
I had this same problem for a while, a good friend of mine was sending me emails which i never recieved however he could receive my emails, i found after a lot of searching that he had infact been blocked which was not something i did myself...i used the following steps which solved my problem even though i wasnt aware this person had been blocked, Go to inbox select options on the right hand of the screen, select more options, then under the junk e-mail selection select safe and blocked senders then select blocked senders check to see if the person ur not getting mail from is listed, if they are simply click on there name and select remove from list...i hope this solves ur problem ..it did for me!
Posted by: Tina at January 8, 2009 1:30 PMI am not receiving any e-mails at all not even junk mails which I used to - I am not too happy about my new situation - I usually received e-mails from hsn.com and qvc.com not nothing. Please tell me how I can changed from hotmail to regular.
Posted by: Flora Seter at January 25, 2009 7:50 AMFor a month now, I have not been receiving emails PERIOD! I have had a hotmail account for 4 years, but this is ridiculous. I feel blind and lost. Who knows what I've missed? I don't want to use my school email for everything, so I am going to drop hotmail and get a gmail account, which I heard, is more reliable. Frustrating!!!!!
Posted by: Emily at January 29, 2009 6:51 PMTina's fix worked for me too !!
Posted by: David B at March 10, 2009 5:07 PMThank you Tina, that worked for me too...although I have no idea how anyone got added to that list!!!
Posted by: Natasha at March 17, 2009 5:08 PMi havent received any e mails that have been sent to me for a week now
Posted by: margaret blake at April 22, 2009 2:35 AMI had the same prob, no bad filters, nothingin junk mail.
Posted by: Zack Strulovitch at May 17, 2009 3:31 PMBut when I went to "Contact List" , Chose the person whom I don't get the emails from, Recent email and then I marked the email as safe
now I can get the emails from him again
Similar problem but with a slight twist. Sometimes an email gets through to the recipient and sometimes it doesn't. Only know of one recipient at one business. Messages to others at the same business seem to get through OK. It's not a free account it's a paid MSN account.
Posted by: Dave Lancaster at August 6, 2009 3:43 PM