How to Check Recipients Before Sending

Check recipients for potential delivery issues before you send — out-of-office, full mailboxes, delivery restrictions, moderation, and more. This uses Microsoft’s Mail Tips API, and no other Outlook MCP server offers this feature.

Quick Check with get-mail-tips

“Check if sarah@company.com is available before I email her”

tool: get-mail-tips
params:
  recipients: ["sarah@company.com"]

The response shows any issues found:

# Mail Tips

**Recipients checked**: 1
**Warnings**: 1

### ⚠ sarah@company.com
**Warnings**: Out of Office
  **Out of Office**: I am on leave until March 8th. For urgent matters, contact james@company.com.
  *Schedule*: 2026-03-01T00:00:00 → 2026-03-08T00:00:00

Check Multiple Recipients

Check a whole team before sending:

tool: get-mail-tips
params:
  recipients: ["sarah@company.com", "team-leads@company.com", "external@partner.org"]

You can also pass recipients as a comma-separated string:

tool: get-mail-tips
params:
  recipients: "sarah@company.com, team-leads@company.com"

Combine with Dry Run

For a complete pre-send review, use checkRecipients with dryRun on the send-email tool:

tool: send-email
params:
  to: "sarah@company.com, james@company.com"
  subject: "Project Update"
  body: "Hi team, here's the latest..."
  dryRun: true
  checkRecipients: true

This returns mail tips warnings followed by the email preview — review both before approving the send.

What Mail Tips Check

Check	What It Means
Out of Office	Recipient has an auto-reply set. Shows their message and schedule.
Mailbox Full	Recipient’s mailbox is full — delivery may fail.
Custom Mail Tip	Admin-configured notice (e.g. “This mailbox is monitored by IT”).
Delivery Restricted	You’re not allowed to send to this recipient (e.g. restricted distribution group).
Moderated	Messages to this recipient require approval before delivery.
External	Recipient is outside your organisation — be mindful of sensitive content.
Max Message Size	Maximum message size the recipient can receive.
Group Members	For distribution groups: total members and how many are external.

Filter Specific Tip Types

By default, all tip types are checked. To check only specific types:

tool: get-mail-tips
params:
  recipients: ["team-leads@company.com"]
  tipTypes: "automaticReplies,mailboxFullStatus"

Available types: automaticReplies, mailboxFullStatus, customMailTip, externalMemberCount, totalMemberCount, maxMessageSize, deliveryRestriction, moderationStatus, recipientScope, recipientSuggestions.

Interpreting Results

• No issues detected (✓) — safe to send
• Out of Office (⚠) — consider waiting or contacting their backup
• Mailbox Full (⚠) — email may bounce; try another channel
• Delivery Restricted (⚠) — you likely can’t send to this address; check with your admin
• External — informational; no action needed unless sharing sensitive content
• Moderated — your email will be delayed until approved

Parameter Reference

Parameter	What it does	Default
recipients	Email addresses to check (array or comma-separated string)	(required)
tipTypes	Comma-separated tip types to request	All types

Tips

• Check recipients before important or time-sensitive emails
• Use checkRecipients: true + dryRun: true on send-email for the most thorough pre-send review
• Mail tips use the existing Mail.Read scope — no additional permissions needed
• Results are most detailed for recipients within your organisation

Related

• Send Email Safely — dry-run, rate limiting, recipient allowlist
• Find Contacts and People — search for the right recipient
• Tools Reference — get-mail-tips