Approver never gets the Power Automate approval email

The approval email is only one copy of the request, so an email that never arrived does not mean the flow failed. Open the Approvals page in Power Automate: if the request is there, the flow worked and only the email is missing. Then check the address and the approver's folders, and ask IT to allow the sender.

Work through five checks in order. First, is the request really there, on the Approvals page? Second, was the address in the flow valid? Third, did the email land in a folder other than the inbox? Fourth, is the approver a guest who never accepted an invite? Fifth, did IT block the sender? Exact names may differ on your screen.

Who this guide is for

You built a flow that sends an approval, and at least one approver says nothing arrived. You may not be an admin. Two checks below need one, and the guide says which.

This guide is about the email that does not arrive. It does not cover Teams alerts, an approver who is away, a request that times out, or reminders. For those, see "Teams approvals not showing up or not notifying", "Approvals stuck when the approver is out", "Power Automate approval fails after 30 days waiting" and "Remind an approver who has not answered after two days".

First, learn what the email is

An approval is a request that Power Automate stores and then tells people about. Microsoft says: "When you submit an approval in a flow, approvers are notified and can review and act on the request." The email is one of the ways they are told.

Microsoft also says an assigned person can respond "directly from an Outlook email, a Microsoft Teams adaptive card, or the Power Automate action center." So the request can be waiting even if the email never shows up. That is why step 1 below checks for the request itself, not the email.

Create an approval or Start and wait for an approval

Microsoft lists both Create an approval and Start and wait for an approval as approvals actions. Microsoft says that with Start and wait for an approval, "the flow starts and then waits for the approvers' response before it completes the run." The five checks here are about the approver, the address and the mailbox, so run them whichever action your flow uses.

Step 1. Check that the request exists

Open https://make.powerautomate.com, select My flows, open the flow, and open the run for the request in question.
Look at the approval action. If it shows an error, the error text tells you why. Go to step 2 for the address errors listed there.
Ask the approver to open https://make.powerautomate.com, select Approvals, and look under their received requests. Microsoft's pages do not describe the exact tab names, so they may differ.
If the request is on that page, it arrived. Only the email is missing. The approver can act there right now, and you can use steps 3 to 5 to find out why the email did not show.

Step 2. Check the address the flow used

Microsoft's connector page says the Assigned To field accepts three kinds of value: an email address, a User Principal Name, or a Microsoft Entra ID user id. It also says: "To specify multiple users, use a semi-colon (;) to separate user identifies."

Check these:

Is each address spelled correctly? Open the run and read the exact value that went into Assigned To, not what you meant to type.
Are multiple approvers separated by a semicolon, not a comma or a space?
If the address came from an earlier step, such as a person column in a list, was it empty for this run? Microsoft's troubleshooting page says an empty value gives this error: "Required field 'assignedTo' is missing or empty."
Does the address match a real user? Microsoft says this error occurs when "none of the entries are found in Graph": "Required field 'assignedTo' contained no valid users in the organization".

If the person column gives you a display name or a claims string instead of an address, see "Show or copy the email from a SharePoint Person column".

Step 3. Check the approver's Outlook folders

If the request exists and the address is good, the email may be in the wrong place. Microsoft's email troubleshooting page lists these checks for a missing Power Automate email:

"Double-check whether you have any Outlook rules that are moving the email to a different folder."
"Check whether you're using the Focused inbox feature. Check whether the email landed in another folder."

Ask the approver to search their whole mailbox, not only the inbox. Search for the request title. Also ask them to look in Junk and in the Other tab if Focused inbox is on. Microsoft's pages do not describe a spam rule for approval emails, so treat Junk as one place to look, not a known cause.

Step 4. Check whether the approver is a guest

This is the one that fails with no warning. Microsoft says: "Guest users who didn't accept the B2B tenant invitation are removed from the approval assignee list." It adds that these users "don't receive approval emails and can't respond to approvals." If every assignee is a pending guest, "the approval creation fails."

Two more facts from Microsoft's guest page matter here. First, "actionable approval mails in Outlook aren't supported for guest users in a tenant." A guest must go to the Power Automate portal to act. Second, guests cannot see approvals across tenants. They see them only while they are signed in to the tenant that sent the request.

What to do: ask the person whether they accepted the invitation email. If you cannot tell, ask your admin. For an outside person, one way to start is to also send a plain email with a link. That is our advice, not a Microsoft rule.

Step 5. Ask IT about the sender

Microsoft's email page says to "confirm that your IT department has approved all Power Automate endpoints to allow it to send email to your email servers." This is an admin check. Give your admin the exact time of the run and the approver's address, and ask whether the message was blocked or held.

Microsoft's connector page adds: "Approval emails are always sent from a standard email account." So you cannot change the sender to your own address. Your admin may need to allow the sending account. If you send your own email with a link, Microsoft says those emails "will not be actionable," meaning the person cannot approve or reject from inside them.

Other causes to rule out

Attachments. Microsoft says the approval action attaches files "until the size of the email reaches 5 MB." Over that, the email "directs the approver to check the attachments in the Power Automate approval center." The email still arrives. It is just not complete.
A disabled connection owner. Microsoft says that if the account that created the Approvals connection is disabled or removed, an owner of the flow "should replace the connection with one that belongs to an active user." See "The person who built your flows left: what happens and what to do".
Database setup. If this is the first approval in your company, Microsoft lists a Microsoft Dataverse database as a prerequisite for approvals. Microsoft's approvals error page lists database errors, so open the failed run and read the error on the approval step.

Add a backup so no request is missed

Even a healthy flow can lose an email. One way to start is a second message that does not depend on the first:

After the approval action, add a step that sends a short message to the approver with the item name and a link to the item.
Keep it to one message. Do not repeat the whole request.
Use a Teams message or a normal email, whichever the approver reads first.

Do not rely on this message to approve. It is a nudge. The approval itself stays on the Approvals page. For a timed nudge, see "Remind an approver who has not answered after two days".

What to avoid

Do not resend the request over and over. Each resend can create a new request, and the approver ends up with several to clear.
Do not guess at the address. Read the exact value in the run history.
Do not tell guests to "click the email button." Actionable mail is not supported for them.
Do not change IT or mail settings yourself. Send the facts to your admin.
Do not assume the email is the only copy. Check the Approvals page first.

A short checklist to keep

Request exists in the run history and on the Approvals page.
Assigned To holds valid addresses, semicolon separated.
Approver searched the whole mailbox and Junk.
Approver is not a pending guest.
Admin confirmed nothing is blocking the sender.
A backup link message is in place.

When to get help

You can build all of this yourself in Microsoft 365. If you would rather have it built and tested for your team, I do that. A tracker like this is a fixed price: $5,000 for one, built in 2 weeks. See "What a SharePoint tracker costs to build". Bring one example of the problem to a free call.

Tell me what's still manual

I am Al Davies. I run 250 High Street LLC and build SharePoint trackers and Power Automate flows for operations teams. I work remotely. The first call is free, and I will not try to sell you anything.

See trackers I built: Tools I built

FAQ

Power Automate approval email not sending: where do I look first?

Open the Approvals page. If the request is there, the flow created it and only the email is missing. Then check the address in Assigned To, the approver's folders and rules, and guest status.

Create an approval not sending email: what do I check?

Check the same things: the Approvals page, the address in Assigned To, the approver's folders and whether the approver is a guest who has not accepted the invitation.

Start and wait for an approval not sending email: what do I check?

The flow pauses until the approver responds, so open the run and the Approvals page first. If the request exists, check the address, the folders, guest status and whether IT blocked the sender.

The run says it succeeded, but the approver got nothing. Why?

With Create an approval, a successful run means the request was created. It does not prove an email was delivered. Check the Approvals page first, then the approver's folders and rules, then guest status.

Can the approver approve without the email?

Yes, if they can open the request on the Approvals page in Power Automate. Microsoft says responses can also come from an Outlook email or a Teams card.

Why can my guest vendor not click Approve in the email?

Microsoft says actionable approval mails in Outlook are not supported for guest users. They must go to the Power Automate portal to act.