An email can be absent because no notification event was created, the channel was not eligible, delivery failed, or the receiving mailbox filtered the message. Start with the monitor and work outward.
1. Confirm that an alert was expected
Uptime Basics sends availability notifications for confirmed state changes, not for every failed check.
- A Down alert is eligible after three consecutive failed cycles that meet the two-of-three regional confirmation policy.
- A recovery alert is eligible when a monitor that was Down returns to Up.
- The first healthy check on a new monitor changes Unknown to Up but does not send a recovery alert.
- A continuous outage does not send the same Down email on every check.
Open the monitor and review its status, incident history, and Detailed Logs. If no confirmed state change occurred, there is no missing delivery to investigate.
2. Look for the notification in Alert History
Alert History separates monitoring from message delivery.
- No alert record usually points to confirmation rules, disabled settings, a missing verified destination, a paused monitor, or notification protection.
- Queued or Sending means delivery processing has not finished.
- Sent or Delivered means the email provider accepted the message or reported delivery to the receiving mail server.
- Failed, Bounced, or Rejected identifies a provider or mailbox delivery problem.
- Complaint reported means the recipient or provider marked the message as unwanted.
- Suppressed means a delivery safeguard intentionally prevented the message.
Email delivery to a mail server does not guarantee inbox placement. Spam filtering and mailbox rules can still move the message.
3. Check the verified email
Open Account > Alerts and confirm:
- The intended address is listed as Verified.
- The intended address is available for selection on the monitor.
The account-wide toggle controls the default for new monitors. The existing monitor's saved Email setting controls whether it sends email.
4. Check the monitor's Alert Channels
Open the monitor and then Alert Channels in Monitor Tools. Confirm:
- Email is enabled for this monitor.
- The intended verified email address is selected.
- The setting reports that it saved successfully.
Changing the account's primary address does not automatically replace a different address explicitly saved on every existing monitor.
5. Send a test email
Select Send test email under the monitor's Alert Channels.
If the test creates an Alert History record, use its delivery state to continue troubleshooting. A test alert does not change monitor status or create an incident.
Avoid sending many repeated tests while one is still Queued. Repeated tests can make the history harder to interpret without fixing a provider delay.
6. Check the receiving mailbox
If Alert History says Sent or Delivered:
- Search all folders for Uptime Basics and the monitor name.
- Check spam, junk, quarantine, focused inbox, and automatic rules.
- Confirm the mailbox is not full or disabled.
- Ask the mail administrator to allow legitimate messages from the
uptimebasics.comdomain. - Confirm a forwarding rule did not redirect the message elsewhere.
For a shared or corporate mailbox, security filtering can occur before the message reaches the user's spam folder.
7. Understand safeguards and retention
A 15-minute repeated-Down cooldown, the per-monitor state-change limit, or account protection can suppress noisy repeated notifications. These controls do not remove the check or incident.
Alert History is retained for 14 days. For an older event, use incident history and Detailed Logs to confirm what monitoring detected, even if the original delivery record has expired.
When to contact Support
Contact Support when a fresh test email repeatedly shows Failed, remains Queued for an extended period, or reports Delivered while multiple unrelated mailboxes cannot find it. Include the monitor name, approximate event time, destination domain, and visible delivery state. Do not send passwords, verification codes, or authentication headers.