MobileMe: Email messages are not received

Resolution

Check the forwarding feature

The forwarding feature for your MobileMe email account may be turned on and redirecting your email to another address. The email forwarding setting affects all incoming email, whether you normally read it using MobileMe Mail or an email application on your computer. To check this:

1. Log in to http://www.me.com/mail
2. Click the Action button  and choose Preferences from the pop-up menu.
3. Select or deselect the "Forward my email to" option.
   
   • If the option is selected, email is forwarded to the account listed. 
   • If the option is deselected, check the MobileMe Mail inbox, or set up the email client application on your Mac or PC to receive MobileMe email.

Note: You cannot automatically forward all of your MobileMe email to another MobileMe email address.

Check your Junk mail folder and filters

It's possible that the messages you are missing actually arrived but were filtered to a Junk folder. Be sure to look in all junk mail folders on every computer you use to access your email. If you locate a missing message in the Junk mail folder at me.com, click the Not Junk button for the message. This will automatically move the message to your Inbox and prevent future messages from that sender from being delivered to the Junk folder.

To change the filter settings in MobileMe Mail, see this article; for Mac OS X Mail, see this article. For other email applications, refer to the application's documentation.

Check your rules

If you primarily check your email in a client application, such as Mac OS X Mail or Microsoft Outlook, a mail rule could be filing messages in a way that you do not expect.

Try checking your other mailbox folders for the messages that you should have received.  If you find your messages in a different folder, try deactivating your rules one at a time until the issue no longer occurs. To learn more about editing or disabling rules, view this article if you are using Mac OS X Mail or refer to the application help located under the Help menu.

You can also check server-side rules at me.com:

1. Log into me.com/mail.
2. Click the Action button  and choose Rules from the pop-up menu.
3. If you have any rules specified, they will be listed. Just click any rule that you want to edit or remove. Note: It may take up to 15 minutes for any new or edited rules to take effect.

Is email delayed, or return to the sender with a "452" error message?

If your email is received after a noticeable delay or if the sender receives a mail delivery failure message with a 452 error, the affected messages may have been inadvertently flagged as "spam" by the MobileMe servers. If so, please see this article.