How To Fix WordPress Mails Not Sending Issue
Often times when using WordPress, a common issue most website owners encounter is the problem of mails not sending. Most times, this issue doesn’t originate from the server. Rather it may be that the email is setup incorrectly on the WordPress installation or an incompatibility issue.
A typical case scenario of WordPress not sending emails might include a submission to a contact form that you never receive, or missing a sales notification from a WooCommerce shop, or a new user confirmation email, etc. Typically these issues are caused by incorrect settings in plugins or an incompatibility with HHVM, PHP 7, etc. Below are some quick solutions to get you up and running fast.
- Test Email On Your Server
The first thing you can do is run a test on your WordPress site with the free Check Email plugin. This is a very basic plugin designed to simply test if your WordPress installation and or server can send emails. Head to the WordPress directory and search for Check Email plugin. Once installed, simply click into “Check Email” under the tools menu in your WordPress dashboard. Enter in an email address to send a test to, and click on “Send test email.
You will then see a confirmation.
Check your email client to see if you received the test email. The subject line will appear as “Test email from https://yourdomain.com.” Also, make sure to check your spam or junk mail folder. If you received an email that means that WordPress can send emails just fine on your web server. This means it is most likely a mis-configuration with your contact form plugin or an incompatibility. You can always reach out to the plugin developer for help. Let them know that you ran the above test and that email is working on your WordPress installation itself.
- Alternative Email Sending Solutions
SendGrid
Another great alternative is SendGrid. They have a free plan, which allows up to 12,000 emails per month. You can download their free WordPress plugin from the WordPress repository. As of writing this the plugin has over 30,000 active installs with a 4.5 out of 5 star rating. The plugin replaces WordPress’s default wp_mail() function by using either an SMTP or API.
Gmail SMTP
Another alternative for sending emails is to bypass the web server altogether and use a 3rd party provider like Gmail as an SMTP server. This might sound complicated, but it is pretty easy to setup. Another benefit to doing it this way is you can sometimes improve deliver-ability of your emails and prevent more from hitting the spam or junk mail folder. To do this you can use a free plugin called Postman SMTP. As of writing this the plugin has over 100,000 active installs with a 4.9 out of 5 star rating. It also works great with WooCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads.
The plugin supports everything: SMTP, Gmail, Mandril, SendGrid and OAuth 2.0. After you have the plugin installed, the first thing you will want to do is run the setup wizard. Click into “Postman SMTP” under settings in your WordPress dashboard and click on “Start the Wizard.” In this example below, Gmail is being used as an SMTP server to send emails for the WordPress installation. You can see all the steps in the following video. This only takes about 5 minutes to setup.
