Sending, receiving, and organizing email in Outlook on the web for business
If the failure happens only when a PDF is attached, the most likely causes are attachment size limits or the recipient server treating the attachment as spam.
Try these fixes in order:
- Check the file size.
- Outlook.com cannot send a message with an attachment larger than 25 MB.
- In some failed-delivery scenarios, attachments larger than 10 MB can also prevent Send Again from working.
- Send the file as a cloud link instead of an attachment.
- Save the PDF to OneDrive and send a sharing link instead of attaching the file.
- This is the recommended workaround for large files and also helps when attachment filtering is causing the rejection.
- Review the non-delivery report for the exact reason.
- Open the returned postmaster or delivery-failure message.
- Scroll to the section similar to Diagnostic information for administrators.
- If it mentions the message was blocked or references blacklist or spam-filter terms, the recipient server is rejecting it as spam.
- If the message is being blocked as spam:
- Contact the recipient through another method and ask them to check whether their email provider or admin is blocking the message.
- The recipient may need to add the sender to their safe senders list.
- If the block is on the recipient provider side, their support team may need to unblock the account or domain.
- If the address was auto-completed, re-enter it manually.
- In a new message, delete the recipient from the To field.
- Start typing the address until it appears in Auto-Complete.
- Select it with the arrow key and delete that Auto-Complete entry.
- Type the full address again and resend.
- If using Outlook.com in a browser is not already being used, try sending from Outlook.com directly.
- If the error occurred from Outlook or another email app, sending from Outlook.com can help isolate whether the issue is app-specific.
If the non-delivery report says the recipient mailbox is full, invalid, or unavailable, the PDF is not the root cause. In that case, the recipient address or mailbox status must be corrected first.
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