Email Forwarding is Returning a User Wasn't Found Error but I am still recieving his out of office message

Donna VanGlad 20 Reputation points
2026-08-07T14:22:59.0833333+00:00

Hello,

I have an employee who is currently out of office and is fowarding his email to a different employee for the day. Whenever we send the out of office employee an email we get his out of office message AND a User Wasn't Found message. Everything is spelled correctly and the user is still in the system - so he can def be found. I checked with the employee who is recieving the forwarded mail and he said that he is NOT recieving the messages at all.

This is all in Microsoft 365

Microsoft 365 and Office | Subscription, account, billing | For business | Other
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Answer accepted by question author
Helen Luu 2,865 Reputation points Independent Advisor
2026-08-07T14:47:17.0666667+00:00

Hello @Donna VanGlad,

Based on the information you provided, I understand that you are experiencing an issue where emails sent to a user who is out of office are not being delivered. Instead, the sender receives a bounce-back message indicating that the recipient could not be found.To help narrow down the cause, could you please verify the following:

  • Whether the affected account has been blocked, deleted, or had its license removed.
  • Whether the forwarding email address is configured correctly and points to a valid recipient.

If everything appears to be configured correctly, could you please try the following troubleshooting steps?

  1. Temporarily remove the forwarding configuration from the mailbox.
  2. Send a test email directly to the affected user.
  3. Check whether the email is delivered successfully or if a bounce-back message is still generated.

If you continue to receive a non-delivery report (NDR), please share the exact error message or error code from the bounce-back email. For privacy reasons, feel free to redact or mask any email addresses before sharing the details.

Once I have this information, I'll be happy to investigate further and provide additional guidance.

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  1. Donna VanGlad 20 Reputation points
    2026-08-07T17:02:02.89+00:00

    We figured it out - they misspelled the email address of the person they were forwarding their email to.

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