Troubleshoot plugin and WooCommerce emails

Many plugins send emails through your site, such as order confirmations, contact form submissions, and user notifications. In this guide, you will learn how to resolve common plugin email delivery problems.

To ensure email delivery, emails sent out by plugins should be sent from email addresses that match the primary domain name of your site. Many email providers block emails from generic addresses like @gmail or @yahoo.

For example, if your primary domain name is yourgroovydomain.com, you would want a plugin to send order notifications from an @yourgroovydomain.com email address.

To set up a domain email address, check our add email to your domain guide for options to create a domain email address.

Once you have a domain email address, refer to the plugin’s documentation to learn how to configure the plugin to send emails from your domain email address.

To help with troubleshooting, you can install an email logging plugin to track all messages sent through your system. These third-party plugins provide information about why emails may not be sent or delivered correctly.

To install an email logging plugin:

1. Visit your site’s dashboard.
2. Navigate to Plugins → Add New.
3. Search for “WP Logging” or another email logging plugin.
4. Click the Install button and then the Activate button.
5. Configure the plugin according to its documentation.

Some plugins can interfere with each other. The more plugins installed on your site, the more likely a conflict can occur.

To check for plugin conflicts:

1. Temporarily deactivate all plugins on your site.
2. Reactivate them one at a time.
3. Check after each activation to see which plugin causes the issue to appear.

Visit our solve problems with plugins guide for more detailed step-by-step instructions.

You can install and set up an SMTP plugin to replace the default email system with your own server. SMTP plugins often provide more reliable email delivery than the default WordPress email system.

WooCommerce emails include registration, order confirmation, order status updates, and more. If you’re experiencing issues with WooCommerce emails specifically, follow these additional troubleshooting steps.

If emails are not arriving for you or your customers, first check to make sure you have set up a specific email to be sent out:

1. Visit your site’s dashboard.
2. Navigate to WooCommerce → Settings.
3. Click on the Emails tab to view a list of all email notifications sent from WooCommerce.
4. Click Manage next to the email that you expect to have been sent out.
5. Ensure the box next to “Enable this email notification” is checked.
6. If available for that email type, make sure the Recipient(s) field has a valid email address.

Just like with other plugins, use a domain email address with WooCommerce:

1. Visit your site’s dashboard.
2. Navigate to WooCommerce → Settings.
3. Click on the Emails tab.
4. Scroll down to the bottom of the screen, below the list of emails, to the “Email sender options” section.
5. Replace the “From” address with an email address that uses your domain.

If you continue to experience issues with WooCommerce email deliverability, we recommend logging outgoing emails, checking for plugin conflicts, and if the issue persists, using an SMTP plugin.