Why is my mailbox saying that it is locked?

If you use POP3 to download your email, your email client establishes a connection to the mail server each time it checks for new messages. POP3 does not allow multiple connections to the same mailbox at the same time.

If your email client attempts to connect again before the previous connection has been fully closed, the mailbox may temporarily become locked. This can happen when your email client is configured to check for new messages too frequently.

In some cases, you may also see this if you try to connect again shortly after a previous login. Waiting a few minutes before trying again will usually allow the previous connection to time out and the mailbox to become available.

Check your email settings

If your mailbox is regularly becoming locked, check the following:

Make sure your email client is not checking for new messages too frequently.
Make sure the same mailbox is not being accessed by multiple devices at the same time.
Check other devices such as your phone, laptop, tablet or home computer to make sure they are not also configured to download mail using POP3.
If possible, configure your email client to check for new messages less frequently.

We recommend using IMAP instead of POP3 wherever possible. IMAP is designed to keep your email synchronised across multiple devices and does not have the same single-connection limitation as POP3.

If your mailbox continues to become locked after checking these settings, please raise a Support Ticket with our Customer Services team. We can investigate whether there is another issue causing the mailbox to remain locked.