WordPress Email Not Working

by Robin Belly Digital Marketing Agency | SEO

WordPress Email Problems with WordPress emails not sending or arriving are common; Form results won't arrive albeit the shape seems to be ok and/or plugin notifications never arrive. This will flow from to at least one or more factors. Sometimes there's an easy fix and sometimes, when all avenues are exhausted, the sole thing left to try to is make that dreaded call to your server/host administrator.

Let’s attempt to avoid that decision.

WordPress form results are sent as emails, to successfully do this;

The server that the web site is sat on has got to are configured to handle outgoing email ‘traffic’

If the email goes to an external email server, any firewall in between must be configured to permit outbound email from the online server

The server that's receiving the emails may have to be set to simply accept emails coming from the online server.

That all sounds very complicated to most folks that haven't addressed such things, so let’s break it down and see if we will determine where the matter lies.

Can my web server send emails?

WordPress will attempt to send emails out using the SMTP protocol, which is made in to most server setups. ‘Most’ being the key word here, an increasing number of WordPress hosts are disabling email hosting for security reasons, but this needn’t mean you’re stuck.

First, let’s check to ascertain what things is. We’ll use an easy plugin for this, it’s called Check Email, developed by MachoThemes, and you’ll examine it here.

Install the plugin, enable it then from your WordPress Tools menu, select Check Email. Fill in your email address (preferably one that uses a special domain from the web site itself) and click on the button to send. Wait a short time and check your inbox.

If you received the email then you’ve got a problem with the form/plugin that isn’t sending results. Check the email addresses configured within the plugin itself and therefore the main email address for your WordPress admin account. If all of them look ok, then you’ll get to invite support from the developer.

If you didn’t receive an email and you’ve left it a few of hours just in case, then try another time, with a special email address.

If neither of the test emails arrived, read on below.

If one did but the opposite didn’t, then we all know that WordPress can send emails successfully, but to not some addresses. If the failed test was sent to an email address with an equivalent domain because the website has, that’s fairly common, see below.

Neither of the test emails worked

This probably means the server can’t or won’t handle outgoing emails. We will attempt to get around that by using another plugin. First, let’s remove or a minimum of disable the Check Email plugin.

Once you’ve done that, attend Plugins > Add New and do an enquiry for WP Mail SMTP by WPForms. Install it, activate and attend the settings – you'll use the Lite version for free of charge. At now you’re getting to tend a choice of services to use for routing emails, most of which can cost you money, but if you've got a Gmail or GSuite account found out with Google, then you'll use their SMTP service for free of charge – set a free gmail account up now if you don’t have one or would like to stay your WordPress emails separate.

NOTE: All of your emails will come from this GMail/GSuite address, so use an appropriate name@gmail.com. If your business email runs through GSuite then use that, all of your emails will then come from the right, matching name.

With the GMail/GSuite login credentials handy, follow the instructions here.

Once you’ve followed all of the instructions, you ought to now have working email sending from WordPress. The WP Mail plugin features a test email function, use that to see.

Emails to an address that uses my name don’t work, but to a special address they are doing

If your email server is checking for address spoofing (which most are), then incoming emails sent from your web server could be treated as dangerous … it works during this way;

Your form results are set to send from wordpress@yourdomainname.com, tons of form plugins will only allow the email name want to be an equivalent because the site uses, you can’t change this. The shape results are sent out from the web server to your domain name email server.

That server says “hang on, I didn’t send this, the (hidden) email header details are all wrong, it must be spoofed, I shall bin it”. This is often a wonderfully acceptable standard configuration for an email server, so what are often done?

You have two options:

Add a rule on the e-mail server that permits incoming email from your web server – You’ll need the IP address of your WordPress server to try to this and a friendly email server administrator.

Set WordPress up to send your form results and plugin notifications to a third-party email address, e.g. a Gmail account and set that account to forward all emails to your preferred address. Some plugins don’t have the choice to settle on a notification address, they only use the first WordPress admin address – you'll change this in WordPress > Settings > General.

I’ve done all of the above and I’m still not getting emails

If you’re still struggling, give us a shout, we will take a glance for you.