If you are not receiving all of your IU email

• Overview
• Misdirected email
• Blocked email

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Overview

If you are not receiving all of the email sent to your Indiana University email address, the cause may be any of the following:

• The messages may have been misdirected. This can happen if:
  • You've set up email forwarding to an email account other than your IU Exchange account.
  • You inadvertently set up a mail forwarding loop.
  • An error exists in the IU email address database.
• The messages may have been blocked. This can happen if:
  • A sender outside IU sends mail to your fully specified Exchange address.
  • Your email account exceeds its size limit.
  • A message contains an attachment that is blocked by your mail filter.
  • The source email system has exceeded the UITS bandwidth limit.
• The messages may have been sent to your Spam/Junk Mail folder. This can happen if your email service suspects that an email is not legitimate. For Exchange accounts, see:
  • About junk email settings in Exchange at IU

Misdirected email

Exchange account mail forwarding issues

You can configure mail forwarding so that messages sent to your IU email address (for example, username@iu.edu) are forwarded automatically to your account on another email service (for example, your_account@someothermail.net). However, if your IU email account is on IU's Exchange service, email sent to your primary IU email address from other IU Exchange accounts will bypass the forwarding you set and land in your Exchange mailbox.

If you want to use another email service to read mail sent to your IU email address, including email that's sent from other IU Exchange accounts, you must create a forwarding rule on the IU Exchange server in addition to setting up forwarding; see Forward your IU email to another address using Microsoft Outlook or Outlook on the web.

Mail forwarding loops

If people emailing you receive bounce-back messages that mention "excessive recursion", the problem is most likely due to a mail forwarding loop. You can inadvertently cause a mail forwarding loop by configuring mail forwarding in such a way that email sent to you has no final destination.

To fix this problem, make sure your primary email address and mail forwarding settings are properly configured; see:

• Change your primary email address and set delivery for your email addresses
• Forward your IU email

Database errors

A problem can occur in the IU email address database if you encountered an error while creating your accounts, or if you left the university temporarily and needed to have your accounts re-enabled. The relevant database updates overnight, so changes you make may not take effect until the next day. If your problem persists, contact your campus Support Center for help.

Blocked email

Mail sent to fully specified Exchange addresses

Any message sent to your fully specified Exchange account address (for example, username@exchange.iupui.edu) from an email system outside IU will be rejected and generate a bounce message to the sender. Make sure your contacts outside IU know to use your primary IU email address (for example, username@iupui.edu).

Mail with blocked attachments

UITS maintains mail filters that block attachments that commonly contain viruses, or that are protected or contain protected content. This blocking behavior varies, depending on an attachment's origin, so it is sometimes possible to receive messages with these types of attachments; see Types of attachments blocked from IU email accounts.

Mail exceeding bandwidth limits

One of the ways IU protects its email system from huge volumes of spam is by limiting each host to sending only several hundred messages per minute. If someone is sending email from a non-IU host that has exceeded its bandwidth limit, that email may not get through to you; see Spam and email virus prevention at IU.

The architecture of IU email systems separates internal university mail flow from the rest of the internet, providing a layer of protection that allows IU email to flow reliably between its students, faculty, and staff members. For this reason, it is expected that all official university email is sent via the IU system, and not through external, non-IU hosts; see About IU's policy on official communications from the university to students.