If you have a WordPress website and notice that you have not been not receiving the emails for your website contact form submissions, welcome to the club! If you would like to determine why this is happening and what to do about it, read on to find the solution. Please note that the following solution may seem daunting to some, but give it a try or if you would prefer to have professional assistance, contact our team of web development experts here.
Why is this Happening?
By default, WordPress utilizes the PHP mail function when it send emails via WordPress itself or any plugins that may also send emails (i.e. contact forms, members registrations, etc.).
Unfortunately, there are some hosting companies who do not correctly configure their servers as it pertains to sending PHP emails.
Additionally, your email server might think those emails are spam and as such, end up blocking them.
That is because your email provider frequently checks whether your email is coming from the location it claims to be coming from. So, if your mail server is Gmail, you might not receive your contact form submission email notifications because they are being sent out from a different server (i.e. Godaddy). What this could mean is that any emails being sent, such as for WooCommerce, or many popular WordPress plugin contact forms, are either never delivered or lost.
How to Fix WordPress Email Deliverability Issue
There is a pretty effective way to ensure that you resolve the WordPress mail deliverability issue for your website.
Install a WordPress Plugin
First, install and activate the plugin, WP Mail SMTP by WPForms. The WP Mail SMTP plugin fixes your WordPress email delivery problems by changing how your WordPress site sends emails. In doing so, WP Mail SMTP utilizes a recommended SMTP mail provider wherein emails are sent using that provider’s direct API. This circumvents any problems resulting from your web host blocking SMTP ports, thus enabling your emails successfully be sent out.
Follow the Plugin Setup Wizard
Once you install WP Mail SMTP and activate it, use the Setup Wizard to walk you through the next steps which includes selecting and connecting to a transactional email service provider. We recommend choosing Sendinblue because it lets you create and use a completely free plan which should be sufficient for most people. Part of that process will be to add some TXT records for SPF and DMARC records to your DNS settings.
If you need additional info for setting up Sendinblue and DNS, please check out this documentation.
Test Your WordPress Email
Once you’ve successfully done this, WP Mail SMTP gives you the ability send a test email to confirm it is working properly.
EMAIL US