How to solve when you can't send emails from WordPress (+Solutions by contact form plugin)

Having WordPress not sending emails properly or at all is a common problem that plagues website owners.

Most managed WordPress hosting companies, including Kinta, do not offer email hosting. This doesn't mean you can't send emails from your WordPress site; Kinta does support transactional emails, allowing you to send site-related emails like notifications for your WordPress site or order confirmations for your WooCommerce store.

Usually, when you try to resolve an issue with WordPress not sending emails, it's not because of a server issue, but because the email settings are incorrect or incompatible with your WordPress installation.

This time, we will discuss how to identify and resolve the cause of not being able to send emails to yourself or other users from WordPress. There are ways to solve email problems on both regular WordPress sites and e-commerce sites using WooCommerce.

We'll also introduce you to popular contact form plugins and discuss possible causes of email delivery issues for each.
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Reasons why you can't send emails with WordPress.
There are several possible reasons why WordPress cannot send emails. An example is:

We will explain in detail how to identify the cause.

1. The email has been sent, but it has been sorted into the spam folder.
Before running any other tests, make sure that emails sent from WordPress aren't going to your spam folder.

If a user tells you that they haven't received their WordPress email, it's possible that it simply ended up in their spam folder.

Check to see if emails from the system are in your spam folder. Emails from WordPress are automated, so depending on your email software, they may be interpreted as spam.

2. Incorrect server settings
One of the most common reasons why WordPress isn't sending emails is because your server isn't configured to send emails.

Rental servers were not originally designed to send emails, and the server you are using PHP mail()may not be configured to use this function.

Fortunately, it's easy to check if this is the case and even change the settings.

How to test if your server can send email
First, test using the free Check Email plugin on your WordPress site.

This plugin is a simple plugin to check whether you can send emails from WordPress or its rental server.

Once installed, open Tools > Check Email in your WordPress admin screen. Enter the email address to send the test email and click Send test email.

Open your email software and check if you were able to receive the test email. The subject line should be something like "Test email from https://yourdomainname.com".



Be sure to also check your spam folder. If you can receive emails, you know that your rental server can send emails from WordPress.

If you are unable to send an email even though there are no problems with the test, there may be a problem with the settings of the contact form plugin, or it may be incompatible. In that case, please contact the plugin developer. It might be useful to tell them that you ran the above test and that WordPress itself was able to send emails without any problems. Or, if you are using the popular contact form plugin, try the solution below.

Kinsta customers using HHVM can temporarily switch to PHP 7 to see if there are any compatibility issues. You can easily switch to PHP 7 from the MyKinsta admin screen. Once the tests are complete, switch back to HHVM.

Whether you're a Kinsta customer or using another rental server, if you're experiencing connectivity issues, you may need to try a different port. The rental server may be blocking the port.

Kinsta uses Google Cloud Platform, which blocks connections on port 25 by default. Google says, ``We are blocking connections on this SMTP port because it is highly susceptible to abuse.' In that case, try a different port such as 2025. Kinsta supports ports 587 and 465.

3. The contact form plugin is sending "spoofed emails."
If you run the above test and find that your server can send emails without any problems, then the problem is with the plugin you are using to send emails from your WordPress site.
In other words, let's suspect that the contact form plugin is the cause.
Contact form plugins may sometimes send emails that are spoofed. This is the same as spam email, and your email software will consider it to be a suspicious email.
Emails from contact forms are sometimes judged to be spoofed emails because they are sent from a different email address than the email address in the sender field.
If the email address of the person filling out the form is set to be entered in the sender field, but the email is sent from a WordPress site, the email software will consider the email suspicious and classify it as a spoofed email. You may end up doing this.
Problems can also occur if the sender and recipient of the email are the same. If a form plugin sends an email originating from the administrator's email address (as it should by default) and is configured to send to the same email address, some email providers may consider this suspicious. I have something to think about. However, this problem is less likely to occur than the "spoofed email" problem.
You should normally be the recipient of the notification email from the contact form. This means you can easily change the settings of your contact form plugin, troubleshoot any issues, and test whether emails can now be sent.

Affected contact form plugins.
This issue can occur with any contact form plugin. The following are just a few examples.

Contact Form 7
Gravity Forms
Ninja Forms
Happy Form
weForms
Jetpack Contact Form
Formidable Forms
We will briefly introduce how to resolve the issue for each inquiry form. Before we get started, let's take a look at how to solve the problem of not being able to send emails from WordPress for each of the causes we have seen so far.
How to prevent WordPress emails from being sent to the spam folder

1. Whitelist your email address
If your email is flagged as spam, you can share your email address with users to whitelist them.
In Gmail, if you move an email to your inbox, future emails from that email address will not be sent to your spam folder. However, the most reliable method is to register your email address as a contact.

2. Use a more secure email address
Please also review the sender's email address used on your site. By default, it is the administrator's email address. If your email address is info@, contact@, sales@, etc., your email software may identify it as spam.
Change your email address to something more professional and make sure all emails sent there are forwarded to your regular email address, so you don't forget to reply. You can do this simply by creating an alias for your email address.

3. Correctly authenticate the sending domain
Another reason why WordPress emails end up in the spam folder is that the sending domain is not properly verified.
Follow this sending domain authentication guide to set it up correctly.
How to set up SMTP and send emails in WordPress
If your site is still unable to send email despite the tests above, you will need to integrate an external SMTP provider with your site to get it to send email again.
SMTP stands for "Simple Mail Transfer Protocol" and is responsible for transferring emails over a network. SMTP allows you to send mail even if your server is not configured to do so.
There are many SMTP services, some of which are free (such as Gmail SMTP Server ). It takes a little time, but it doesn't cost anything.
For configuration information, see How to use a free SMTP server with WordPress.

How to configure the form plugin to send emails correctly
If the server settings allow you to send emails, but you cannot send emails from the form, there must be a problem with the settings on the form side.
Let's take a look at how to configure the main contact form plugins to send emails.
In both cases, we will proceed with the assumption that you have already tried to connect to the site via SMTP and have confirmed that emails can be sent from the server (checked your spam folder as well), but you cannot send emails.
Solve the problem of not being able to send emails with Contact Form 7
Contact Form 7 is a historic and extremely popular free WordPress form plugin.
If you are having trouble sending email (and you know that the server itself can send email), the solution is to change the address from which the email is sent.

Open “Contact” > “Contact Form” from the WordPress admin screen.
In the "From" field, enter the site administrator's email address, not the email address entered in the form. You can use that email address in the " Reply-to " field, but not in the "From" field.

Avoid using the same email address for "To" and "From". Use a different email address than the one you use on your site.

Finally, save your change.
Fill out the form yourself and test sending it.
Solve the issue of not being able to send emails with Gravity Forms
Gravity Forms is one of the most popular and well-regarded paid form plugins. Compared to Contact Form 7, the problem of emails not being sent should be less frequent, but it can still occur. Detailed instructions can be found in the plugin documentation.
Try the solutions in the documentation one by one to be able to send emails.
Solve the issue of not being able to send emails with Ninja Forms
Ninja Forms has both free and paid versions. There are also many add-ons available for download from the WordPress Plugins page.
If you have email-related issues with Ninja Forms, we recommend using the SendWP plugin, which is also created by the same development team.
SendWP makes SMTP work well on your server and is also available as a free plugin. However, if the cause is not related to server-side email sending, SendWP will not solve your problem.
If you don't want to pay SendWP's $9 monthly fee, follow the email troubleshooting steps in the official documentation.
Solve the problem of not being able to send emails with Happy Forms
Happy Forms also has a free version and a paid version.
Happy Forms has a help guide, but it doesn't give detailed instructions on what to do if you can't send emails correctly.
To change the email address that Happy Forms sends from, edit the individual form's email settings in the same way as Contact Form 7.
Open Happy Forms > All Forms and select the form you want to edit. This will open an interface that looks like a customizer.

Open the Email tab.
From here, you can change the email address to which notifications and confirmations are sent, as well as the email address from which they are sent, to prevent emails from being identified as spoofed emails.
Once you have finished editing, click the " Update " button at the top and test the form submission.
Solve the issue of not being able to send emails in weForms
weForms also has a free version and a paid version. You can set up email using a variety of email providers, including WordPress itself and SendGrid.
We have a troubleshooting guide to help you resolve issues with weForms not being able to send emails. Follow the steps to determine the cause of the problem and get your email back up and running.

Solve the issue of not being able to send emails with Jetpack Contact Form
If you use the Jetpack plugin , you may also be using the simple contact form included within it. You can insert forms by adding form blocks to WordPress pages and posts.
Jetpack has fewer settings than other form-specific plugins, but you can change the email address to which emails are sent.
Jetpack doesn't apply form input information to the email's To or From fields, so you're less likely to run into email-related issues. If you're having trouble, the emails to and from addresses may be the same.
After adding a form, click the edit button at the top of it and a drop-down menu will appear. You can change the destination address from here.
If you want to change the form submission address, Jetpack forms use the site administrator's email address, so you'll need to change that.
Solve the problem of not being able to send emails with Formidable Forms
Formidable Forms also has a free version and a paid version. If you're having trouble sending emails with Formidable Forms, the official documentation recommends connecting your site to SMTP.
However, if the problem persists even though you have already tried an SMTP connection, as mentioned above, the email may have been determined to be a "spoofed email" because it was sent from a different email address than the actual sender address. You should question the gender.
From the WordPress admin screen, open Formidable > Forms and select the form you want to edit. Click the Settings tab at the top, then click the Actions & Notifications tab on the left. From there, open Email notification.
Here you can edit the sender and destination addresses for notification emails. By default, both are sent to the administrator's email address, not the email address entered in the form.
To change where the email is sent (to a different email address than the sender), edit the To field and manually enter the email address you want to use.
Changes made on the settings screen will be reflected, so be sure to check that the information you entered is correct.

summary
It's common for WordPress to not be able to send emails and you're confused as to why. One of the most common WordPress errors, this problem can be caused by the email being routed to the spam folder, the server not being configured to send emails, or the contact form settings needing to be changed. Possible causes include...
Use the methods above to determine why your WordPress site is unable to send emails and help resolve the issue. I'm sure you'll be able to send emails again soon!
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