You open your EarthLink inbox expecting a reply, an order confirmation, or a note from someone you have been waiting to hear from, and it simply is not there. Messages have stopped arriving, or only some of them are getting through, and you have no idea where the rest have gone. The good news is that EarthLink email problems like this almost always trace back to a handful of fixable causes, from an overzealous spam filter to a mailbox that has quietly filled up.
EarthLink runs its own webmail in-house, so the settings and tools you need live inside your EarthLink Web Mail account rather than with a third-party provider. Below you will find clearly numbered fixes, ordered from the most common cause to the more technical ones. Work through them in sequence and you should have mail flowing into your Inbox again.
Start With the Spam Folder Before Assuming Mail Is Lost
Before you change any settings, check the most likely hiding place for missing messages. EarthLink's spamBlocker can route legitimate email out of your Inbox, which means a "missing" message is frequently sitting in your spam folder rather than being truly undelivered. This single step resolves a surprising number of "not receiving" reports.
- 1.Sign in to EarthLink Web Mail.
- 2.Open your Spam (Known Spam) folder.
- 3.Look through it for the messages you expected to receive.
- 4.If you find a wanted message, select it and click the This is NOT spam button.
Marking a message as "not spam" does two things: it delivers that message to your Inbox, and it teaches the filter to recognize the sender in future so the same email does not get diverted again. If your missing mail was here, this may be the only fix you need.
Check Whether spamBlocker Is Set Too Aggressively
EarthLink's spamBlocker offers two protection levels, and the one you are using changes how strictly incoming mail is treated. The Medium setting is on by default and blocks most known spam while still letting unfamiliar senders through. The High setting is far stricter: it only allows email from senders already in your Address Book, so anyone not listed there is held back until you approve them.
If you have stopped receiving mail specifically from new contacts or expected senders you have never emailed before, there is a good chance spamBlocker is set to High. To review the level, sign in to Web Mail and click the Edit option next to spamBlocker in the left menu, then click the Settings tab.
From there you can confirm which protection level is active. Switching from High back to Medium lets legitimate mail from senders outside your Address Book reach the Inbox again, which is usually what you want if you correspond with new people regularly.
Unblock Senders You Previously Added to the Block List
If you have ever blocked a sender or an entire domain, anything from that address will quietly fail to reach your Inbox, even long after you have forgotten you blocked it. This is worth checking when mail from one specific person or company refuses to arrive while everything else works fine.
- 1.In Web Mail, click Edit next to spamBlocker in the left menu.
- 2.Click the Settings tab.
- 3.Open the Blocked Sender List.
- 4.Select any address that should not be blocked.
- 5.Click Unblock Sender(s), then save your changes.
Once you save, mail from those addresses is free to reach your Inbox again. It is worth scanning the whole list rather than assuming you only blocked one address, since older entries are easy to overlook.
Clear Out a Full Mailbox So Delivery Can Resume
EarthLink provides 100MB of storage per email address, and once that space is used up the mailbox stops receiving new email entirely. If you have never cleaned out your account, large attachments and years of saved messages can quietly push you to the limit, at which point new mail simply has nowhere to land.
To free up room, delete messages you no longer need in Web Mail. Pay special attention to anything with large attachments, and remember to empty the Trash afterward, since deleted messages can still occupy space until the Trash is cleared.
Once you have reclaimed enough space, delivery resumes on its own. If you regularly run out of room despite housekeeping, EarthLink also lets you purchase additional storage so you do not have to keep deleting mail to stay under the cap.
Reactivate an Account That Has Gone Dormant
EarthLink suspends email delivery on accounts that have been inactive for 90 days. If you have a secondary address you rarely check, or you simply have not logged in for a few months, the account may have stopped accepting new mail without any error reaching you.
The fix is straightforward: sign in to Web Mail to access the mailbox again. Signing in reactivates delivery, and incoming messages should start arriving once more. If you maintain an address you only use occasionally, it is worth logging in periodically just to keep it active.
Make Sure POP Is Not Removing Mail Before You See It
If your mail seems to vanish, or it only shows up on one device while another never sees it, the cause may be how your mail program connects to the server rather than EarthLink itself. By default, POP downloads messages and then deletes them from the server, while IMAP keeps messages on the server until you choose to delete them.
That difference matters when you check mail on more than one device. A POP setup on one computer can pull messages down and remove the server copy, leaving your phone or webmail with nothing to display. If this sounds like your situation, confirm whether your mail app is using POP or IMAP and switch to IMAP if you want copies to stay available everywhere.
When configuring or correcting your mail program, use EarthLink's official server settings:
- Incoming (IMAP): imap.earthlink.net, port 993, SSL/TLS
- Incoming (POP3): pop.earthlink.net, port 995, SSL/TLS (the POP host varies by domain, in the format pop.[domain])
- Outgoing (SMTP): smtpauth.earthlink.net, port 587, STARTTLS
Authentication is required for all of these. Enter your full email address as the username along with your password, and make sure the security settings above match exactly so the connection succeeds.
Fix Web Mail When It Will Not Load Your Messages
Sometimes the mail is arriving fine, but Web Mail will not load or refuses to display new messages correctly. When the interface itself is the problem, the trouble usually lives in your browser rather than in your account.
Start by closing your browser completely, including every other open window, then reopen it and sign in to Web Mail again. A fresh session clears up many display glitches on its own. If messages still will not appear, make sure cookies are enabled and clear your browser's temporary files, then sign back in at webmail.earthlink.net.
Working through these browser steps rules out stale cached data, which is a common reason new messages fail to show even when delivery is working normally behind the scenes.
Reset Your Password If You Cannot Get Into Web Mail
If the reason you cannot read incoming mail is that you cannot sign in at all, a password reset gets you back to your messages. Go to webmail.earthlink.net, click the option to recover a forgotten password, and follow the prompts to set a new one.
Once you are back in, you can update your password again later from your account or mailbox preferences. Keeping your credentials current also helps avoid future sign-in interruptions that can make it look like mail has stopped arriving.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why am I not receiving any new EarthLink emails?
The most common reasons are spamBlocker diverting messages to the spam folder, a mailbox that has hit its 100MB storage limit, or an account that has gone inactive for 90 days and had delivery suspended. Check the spam folder first, then confirm your mailbox has free space and that you have signed in recently.
How do I stop EarthLink from sending good mail to spam?
Open the spam folder, select the wanted message, and click "This is NOT spam" so it is delivered and recognized in future. If mail from new senders keeps getting blocked, check whether spamBlocker is set to High, since that level only allows mail from people in your Address Book. You can review this by clicking Edit next to spamBlocker, then the Settings tab.
Why does my EarthLink mail disappear after I read it on my computer?
This usually happens when your mail program uses POP, which downloads messages and then deletes them from the server by default. Switching to IMAP keeps messages on the server until you delete them, so they remain available across all your devices.
What are the correct EarthLink incoming mail server settings?
For IMAP, use imap.earthlink.net on port 993 with SSL/TLS. For POP3, use pop.earthlink.net on port 995 with SSL/TLS, where the host varies by domain. The outgoing SMTP server is smtpauth.earthlink.net on port 587 with STARTTLS, and all connections require your full email address and password.
How much storage does an EarthLink email account have?
Each EarthLink email address comes with 100MB of storage. When the mailbox is full it stops receiving new email, so deleting old messages and large attachments (and emptying the Trash) frees up space and lets delivery resume. Additional storage can also be purchased if you need more room.
