Email isn't sending

Find out why a proposal, invoice, gallery link, automation or notification never arrived, and fix the mailbox or the setting behind it.

Updated September 2, 2026

Nothing went out, or something went out to you but not to the couple. Which of the two it is decides where to look, because Hailo sends two different kinds of mail down two different paths.

The two kinds of email

Kind Examples Goes out through Needs
Email to a couple Proposals, invoices, questionnaire links, gallery links, auto-replies, automation steps Your own connected mailbox, from your address A mailbox connected under Settings > Integrations
Hailo telling you something New lead, payment received, contract signed, the other 13 notification events Hailo, not your mailbox An email address on Your details, and the event's Bell and Email switches on

So a studio with no mailbox connected still gets Hailo's own alerts, and a studio with a mailbox connected can still miss them if the notification switches are off. They are unrelated systems.

Nothing sends to couples at all

No mailbox is connected

Until a mailbox is connected, nothing to a couple sends. Send stops and says so: "No email account is connected".

  1. Open Settings > Integrations.
  2. Connect Gmail (one click, no password) or Custom Email (Outlook, Microsoft 365, Fastmail, iCloud, Zoho or your own domain, using an app password).
  3. Click Send test email → on the tile. Hailo shows "Test email sent to" your address. Check the inbox.

See Connect Gmail and Connect another mailbox.

The Gmail tile says Needs reconnecting

This is the one that catches people out, because everything looks connected until you read the chip. Google has stopped accepting sends, usually after a password change or after access was revoked in your Google account. Nothing sends at all while the tile is in this state: proposals, invoices and client receipts all stop.

  1. Click Reconnect on the Gmail tile.
  2. On Google's screen, leave the box about sending email on your behalf ticked. Unticking it is what causes "Gmail connected, but permission to send email wasn't granted."
  3. Approve and return to Hailo. The chip goes back to Connected.
  4. Send a test email to confirm.

It sends from the wrong address

Gmail takes priority. If both Gmail and Custom Email show Connected, everything goes through Gmail, and the Custom Email tile says so. To send from the custom mailbox, disconnect Gmail on the Gmail tile.

Connected What Hailo uses
Gmail only Gmail
Custom Email only Your custom mailbox
Both Gmail
Neither Nothing sends

Messages you might see

Message What to do
"Gmail send failed:" followed by a reason Google refused the send. Check the tile for Needs reconnecting and reconnect
"The server rejected that username/password. Most providers need an app-specific password here, not your normal login password." Make an app password with your provider and paste that. On Microsoft 365, also check SMTP AUTH is enabled for the mailbox
"Couldn't reach" followed by a server and port The server name, port or security setting is wrong. 587 goes with STARTTLS, 465 with SSL/TLS. Pick the provider preset again
"Test send failed:" followed by a reason The saved app password may have been revoked. Click Reconfigure and enter a fresh one
"OAuth state mismatch" The approval took too long or came back to a different session. Connect again and finish in one go

One couple never gets anything

There is no email address on file

The composer is hidden on a lead with no email: "No email on file for this lead. Add an email address to reply, or log a note from the Activity rail." Click Edit lead and add one.

The same applies in Deliver. The Email the couple fold reads "Hailo has no email address for , so it cannot send them anything. Add one on their client page and this becomes a Send button. Until then, copy the link at the top of this panel and send it yourself."

Deliver will not email a link that does not work. The fold reads "Publish first to email the couple their link." Publish the gallery, then send.

The three states of that fold are: not published, no email on file, and ready ("Email the link to

." with a Send to couple button). Only the third one sends.

An automation never sent its email

Six things stop an automation's Send email step, and none of them show an error on the lead.

  1. The automation is a Draft. Nothing sends from a draft. Every automation you add starts as one. Flip it to Live.
  2. Going Live is not retroactive. People who hit the trigger before you flipped it are not picked up.
  3. No mailbox is connected. The Automations page shows a banner and a Connect in Settings → link when none is. A Live automation with a Send email step needs one.
  4. The template no longer exists. A step naming a deleted or renamed template is skipped and recorded internally as "template not found". No email goes out, and the automation's card still updates Last ran, because the chain did start. Open the automation and re-pick the Template from the dropdown.
  5. It already ran for that person. Each automation runs once per lead or client per trigger. Flipping Live to Draft and back does not re-run it.
  6. A wait has not come round yet. Waits resume every 15 minutes, so a step due at 9:07 goes on the next sweep.

Also worth knowing: a template with manual merge tags such as {{amount}} or {{link}} sent by an automation has nobody to type the value. Keep manual tags out of automated templates. See Automation gotchas.

Hailo's own notifications are not arriving

These come from Hailo, not from your mailbox, so connecting Gmail does nothing for them.

  1. Open Settings > Notifications and look at the panel at the top. A chip with your studio email means mail goes there. A No email set chip means there is nowhere to send it.
  2. If it says No email set, add an address in the Email field on Settings > Your details.
  3. Click Send test email. Hailo mails "Hailo, notification test" to that address.
Result next to the button Meaning
"Sent to {email}" then "check your inbox." It worked
"No email on your business profile yet" Add an email under Your details
"Email sending isn't configured on this install" This install cannot send email at all
"Send failed" Try again in a minute

Turning the bell off also mutes the email

Bell is the master switch for each of the 16 events. With Bell off, that event is muted completely: no bell, no email, no digest line. The Email switch is greyed out until the bell is on.

So if you turned off a noisy bell and later wondered where the emails went, that is why. Turn the Bell back on, then turn Email on.

Emails arrive once a day instead of at once

Frequency covers every email-enabled event at once. Set it to Per event rather than Daily digest or Weekly digest. The bell always pings live either way.

Always send a test

Every mailbox tile has Send test email →, and the Notifications page has its own Send test email. They test two different paths. Run both before you trust a setting, and run the mailbox one after any reconnect.

If it didn't work

  • The test email arrives but couples say nothing does. Check the address on the record, and ask them to look in spam. Every email Hailo sends is logged on the lead or client it went to, with Delivered, Opened or Clicked.
  • You need to attach a file. The composer sends text only. Use Open in Gmail → in the composer footer to finish there, remembering that an email sent that way is not logged in Hailo and has no tracking.
  • "Couldn't send (). Copy the link and send it manually." in Deliver. Your mailbox refused the send. Check the connection under Settings > Integrations, or copy the link and send it from your mail app.
  • A couple replied and the reply is not on their record. Replies only appear in Hailo once reply capture is set up. That is separate from sending.

Still nothing? See Contact support and say which of the two kinds of email is missing.

  • Connect GmailSend proposals, invoices, questionnaire links and auto-replies from your own Gmail address, test the connection, and fix a connection that stopped sending.
  • Connect another mailbox (Outlook, Fastmail, iCloud, your own domain)Send from a non-Google mailbox using an app password, test it, change the settings later, and understand which mailbox wins when Gmail is also connected.
  • Send an email from HailoWrite and send an email to a couple from their lead or client record, pick a template and a mood, add a CC, and know which mailbox it goes through.
  • Automation gotchasThe handful of automation behaviours that surprise people, why each one is the way it is, and what to do instead.
  • Automations overviewWhat an automation is, how the Automations page is laid out, what Paused and Live mean, and how Hailo keeps you from adding the same automation twice.
  • NotificationsChoose which events ping the bell, which also email you, and whether emails arrive per event or as a daily or weekly digest.
  • Your detailsSet the business name, owner, email, phone, website and studio link name that couples see on proposals, invoices and delivery pages.
  • Email the couple their linkSend the gallery link from Hailo, with a subject and message you can check before it goes.
  • Contact supportReach a person at Hailo from inside the app or by email, and send the few details that get your problem solved in one reply.
Still stuck? Send a note from the contact page and a real person at Hailo answers. Include the studio name you signed up with and, if it is about a specific screen, what you clicked.
Contact support