Power Automate Approval Email Not Received? How to Fix It
The flow runs, the approval step shows as waiting, but the approver says nothing arrived. Here's how to find where it went wrong.
Awokunle Winner1. Confirm the approval exists
Ask the approver to open the Approvals app in Microsoft Teams, or the Approvals page in Power Automate. If the request is listed there, the approval works and only the email is the problem. They can approve from there while you fix it.
2. Check the Assigned to value
Open the run and look at the inputs of 'Start and wait for an approval'. Assigned to must contain valid email addresses or user principal names, separated by semicolons. A display name, an empty person column or a trailing space means the approval goes nowhere useful.
Approvers generally need to be users in your Microsoft 365 organisation.
3. Notifications are switched on
Newer versions of the approval action have an Enable notifications setting. Make sure it's set to Yes.
4. Junk mail and quarantine
Approval emails come from a Microsoft address and can land in Junk or be held by your mail filters. Check Junk, then ask your admin to check quarantine in the Microsoft Defender portal.
5. Buttons missing in the email
The Approve and Reject buttons are actionable messages, which some Outlook versions and mobile mail apps don't show. The email still contains a link to respond, and the Teams Approvals app always works.
6. The very first approval in an environment
The first time anyone uses approvals in a Power Platform environment, Microsoft sets up storage for them in the background. That first run can take several minutes or fail. Run the flow again after a few minutes.
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