Why customers don't get Microsoft Bookings confirmations

1. Is the built-in Customer email field still in use?#

This is the fix from the most-asked thread on the topic (136 "same question" votes on Microsoft Q&A, top community answer with 20 upvotes). People had hidden the standard email field and added their own custom question called "Email". Bookings treats a custom question as plain text, so it has no address to send to.

Check each service:

1. Open your shared booking page, then Services and the service.
2. Go to Custom fields.
3. Make sure the built-in Customer email field is enabled (highlighted). Microsoft lists customer email, phone, address and notes as "non-removable fields" that can be made optional.
4. Tick Required. The Bookings FAQ is explicit: "If the system doesn't have the customer's email information, there's no way for the confirmation mail to be delivered to the customer." That includes the Teams join link.

Also ask your admin whether Restrict collection of customer data (Microsoft 365 admin center → Settings → Org settings → Bookings) has been used. Tenant settings can take up to four hours to apply.

2. Does the service send confirmations to customers?#

Emails are driven by each service. On the service's Notifications page, check that Email confirmation goes to customers (or customers and staff), not staff only. Services are configured separately, so a problem with one service and not another usually lives here.

3. Is the address typed correctly?#

Open the booking in the Calendar and check the customer's email. The booking form only checks the format, so a mistyped domain goes through and the confirmation goes nowhere; see typos in customer email addresses.

If you find a typo, correct the email on the booking and save. Saving a change sends an updated confirmation.

4. Did the email leave the mailbox?#

Ask an Exchange admin to run a message trace for the customer's address. A Microsoft moderator suggested exactly this in a 2026 thread about custom reminders reaching the owner but not customers.

• Delivered: it's in the customer's junk, quarantine or another folder. Ask them to search for your business name.
• Failed with 550 5.7.1: the recipient's server rejected the sender. See the deliverability checks.
• Blocked by your own rule: a transport rule, connector or gateway in your tenant caught mail from the booking mailbox.
• No record at all: Bookings didn't generate a customer email. Go back to checks 1 and 2.

If the trace shows the sender as …@yourtenant.onmicrosoft.com, moving the mailbox to your own domain is the long-term fix. The admin steps are on changing the Bookings sender address.

5. Less common causes#

• Bookings created through Microsoft Graph. Appointments have an optOutOfCustomerEmail property. If an integration sets it to true, the customer gets nothing.
• Changes not applied yet. Microsoft says business-level changes can take up to 10 minutes.
• You edited the text, not the delivery. Changing "Additional information for Email Confirmation" doesn't affect whether mail is sent.

What Bookings doesn't offer#

As of September 2026 there's no per-booking delivery status in the Bookings web app, no documented resend button, and no check that an email address is real before the booking is made. If the email arrives but the meeting link is missing, see Teams link missing.

Doing this with BookingsXP#

If you take bookings through the BookingsXP widget on your site, it checks the email domain before the booking is submitted and asks "Did you mean …?" when it spots a likely typo such as gmial.com. It only catches mistyped domains, not mistakes in the part before the @, and it doesn't cover bookings made on the Microsoft page or by staff. The confirmation itself is still sent by Microsoft Bookings, so checks 1, 2 and 4 above still apply. BookingsXP is independent and not affiliated with or endorsed by Microsoft.