Late-Delivered E-Mails

[Tefler]

We are using Windows 10 and our ISP is PlusNet. When we send e-mails to our son, on his gmail address, it can take up to 3 days for them to arrive. I use Windows Live Mail and have Sophos antivirus, my husband uses Outlook and Avast antivirus. PlusNet claim that it's nothing to do with them. Webmail through plusnet was delivered more promptly, but when a reply was attempted, it bounced.
Please can somebody give us some pointers on what to do about this?

[Buenchico]

The following won't, in itself, solve the problem but it should show where the hold-up is occurring:

Your son needs to view the extended headers of a delayed email. Instructions here:
https://support.google.com/mail/answer/29436?hl=en
Then he can either study it to manually work out where the delay occurred or he can use Google's message header tool to do the work for him. (Instructions in the same link). At least you'll then know whether the problem lies with Plusnet's server, Gmail's server or one somewhere in between.

[Guilbert53]

It probably is not causing your problem (as your husband uses Outlook) but the last release of Windows Live Mail was 2012 and Microsoft stopped supporting it in 2016 so you should really try to move off it.

Check your PlusNet mail settings to make sure you are using the correct ones. Check them here:

https://www.plus.net/help/email-guides/how-to-set-up-plusnet-email/

In the long term consider moving to a "web" based email system like gmail or Outlook.com as there is not "set up" required, you just logon to your email in your browser and all the emails are stored in "the cloud".

It also means you can logon to your email system on any computer in the world and do your emails, as well as on any smartphone or tablet, with no setup required.

[Bertrum]

This is not a new problem and from what I gather the problem appears to be a gmail one
It has been stated if you have a paid for gmail account the emails go through quite quickly if you have a freebee it could take some time but the cause is not well understood as gmail support are not addressing the issue. I can send emails from my plusnet account to my gmail account and it can take from hours to days to disappearing into space and I have no problems sending to any other provider.
But as Buenchico has stated you need to check the email header to see where the holdup is

[Jamjar1]

There are pages about this problem on the Plusnet forums here: https://community.plus.net/t5/Email/Mail-delivery-to-recipients-taking-5hrs-plus/td-p/1549161
Basically the answer is that there is nothing you can do yourself – Gmail just does not like emails from [email protected] whatever your system. When you send via webmail you become a different user i.e. [email protected] which arrives at Gmail instantly but cannot be used as a reply address as it is bounced back by Plusnet. You will either need to change one of your email accounts or keep making a fuss with existing providers!

[Tefler]

Thank you for your responses. As Jamjar says, there seems to be little we can do about this, short of setting up our own Gmail address, or something equally annoying.