Troubleshooting an email connection

Most email connections work first try. When they don't, here's how to figure out what's going on.

Outlook says “your account type isn't compatible”

If you connected an Outlook mailbox and see an amber banner saying we can't reach it — “your account type isn't compatible” — what's happening is one of two things. Both are limits on Microsoft's side, not ours.

• Your account is a free personal Microsoft account that started life as a Skype, Xbox, or MSN login (some Hotmail and Outlook.com accounts behave the same way). Microsoft doesn't expose these to outside tools through the same API as work accounts. There's no way for us to fix it on our end.
• Your mailbox is on an on-premises Exchange server managed by your IT department, rather than in Microsoft 365 cloud. Same root cause — the API we use only sees cloud mailboxes.

What to do

• If you have a different work email (a Microsoft 365 account or a Gmail), connect that one instead. Click Reconnect (different account) on the connection card.
• If on-prem Exchange is your only option, log emails manually as notes for now. Or ask IT whether your company is migrating to Microsoft 365 — most are.
• If it's a personal Microsoft account, consider getting a free Gmail address for sales correspondence. Less elegant but it works.

“We need you to reconnect” banner

Sometimes Google or Microsoft revoke our access — you might have changed your password, removed an app permission, or just gone several months without using it. The connection card flips to amber and says we need you to reconnect.

1. Click Reconnect on the card.
2. Sign in to Google or Microsoft again.
3. Approve the permissions.
4. We pick up from where we left off. Past timeline emails stay; new ones flow again.

“This email isn't showing up on the timeline”

If you sent or received an email and it didn't land on the contact's timeline within 5 minutes, check:

• Is the contact in your Sales Hub at all? We only capture emails where the other party matches a contact you've added. If they're new, add them first, then click Sync now on the email settings page — we'll pull the past 30 days of mail with that address.
• Did you check the sent folder? If you sent the email outside the Sales Hub, give it 5 minutes (or click Sync now). If it's still not there, the email might have used a different address than the one on the contact's record.
• Was your trial active when the email landed? If your trial expired and you haven't upgraded, sync is paused. Connect the mailbox after upgrading and you'll catch up.

Sending fails: “message rejected”

If a Send through the composer comes back with an error, it's almost always one of these:

• Attachments too large. See the limits in Sending email from the Sales Hub. Outlook in particular caps total attachments at 3 MB.
• Bad recipient address. Mistyped email. Check the To field.
• Your mailbox is over quota. Clear out old mail in Gmail or Outlook and try again.

Disconnecting and starting over

If something feels stuck and nothing above helps, click Disconnect on the connection card and reconnect from scratch. We forget your mailbox tokens; you re-authorise; sync runs fresh. Past timeline emails stay (they're records).