How to fix E-Mail problems in WordPress and WooCommerce

Last Updated on: 13th October 2017, 12:54 pm

A frequent issue in WordPress or WooCommerce: Email do not get sent. Here is a suggested path to resolve this.

Step 1: Install a log to see if mails get triggered

The first thing you want to do when dealing with this is make sure, that there is email activity to begin with. Here are two plugin that can help you:

Install one of them, then repeat the action that triggers the mail (register for a new account, purchase a product in your shop) and take a look at the log. Most times it will look similar to this.

Screen Shot 2016-03-16 at 14.03.52
click for bigger size

Since there are entries of Email activity, the issue lies probably in the delivery method. So as a next step, we are going to exchange the default WordPress mail send feature with SMTP.

Step 2: Get a full mail account

Get a full mailbox account at a hosting provider of your choice, that provides you with:

  • SMTP Server
  • Login
  • Password

Gmail is a bit different, so do not use it. If you have no access to a full mailbox, get one now.

Step 3: Configure a SMTP plugin

Install and activate a SMTP plugin. Here are a few suggestions:

Fill in your account settings:

Click for larger image. Do NOT forget to activate the SMTP settings as indicated by the blue error.
Click for larger image. Do NOT forget to activate the SMTP settings as indicated by the blue error.

and send another mail. This time it should work.

Checklist:

Tips:

If sending your test email via SMTP works, but you still get no WooCommerce notification mail, then you need to activate SMTP as indicated via the blue arrow in the screenshot above.

Need to send WooCommerce notification emails to multiple recipients? Try my plugin: How to send WooCommerce Email to multiple recipients

18 responses

  1. Hi,

    I am facing this email sending issue with new woocommerce orders.
    Order confirmation emails are not sending automatically.
    I have tried all three of these plugins.
    I Can send the Order Processing/Confirmation email manually but it does not go automatically.
    Test Email Also works.

    Please help

    1. Con Schneider Avatar
      Con Schneider

      Hello Sahil,

      I have added a checklist that illustrate the troubleshooting steps.
      Have you tried them all?

    2. Hello,
      Thank you very much for your post was incredibly helpful.
      I want to contribute something to the friend who still has the same problem and probably others that still have not been able to solve this.
      I had the same problem, the mails were not going and then I found your post. I followed step by step, I checked, I installed the plugins, did the tests, but did not work.
      However, we discovered that this was because there are different exceptions according to web hosting you are using. In my case, the site is hosted at DreamHost and configuration was a little different:

      In the “SMTP Host” field instead of starting with “smtp.mydomain.cl” I put “mail.mydomain.cl”
      In the “SMTP Port” field instead of putting “25” put “465”.
      In the “Encryption” field check the “Use SSL Encryption” option.

      I think that was it. Now, thanks to the installed plugins and settings, emails are working perfectly.

      Thank you very much again for the help!

      Regards!

      1. Con Schneider Avatar
        Con Schneider

        Hello Camila,

        Happy to hear you did find my post helpful. 🙂
        Thanks a lot for adding your input as well!

  2. James Robins Avatar
    James Robins

    This plugin takes care of stage 1 – logging the emails sent for each order

    https://wordpress.org/plugins/order-emails-log-for-woocommerce/

    1. Con Schneider Avatar
      Con Schneider

      Thank you for sharing this. All the best.

  3. hello not working on my side, anyone can you help to fix this issue?

    1. Con Schneider Avatar
      Con Schneider

      Hi there,

      Happy to give some input. Where does it fail for you?

  4. My woocommerce mail problem is solved by reading this article,
    Thanks a lot…………

    1. Con Schneider Avatar
      Con Schneider

      Glad to hear. Cheers.

  5. That was easy setup, thank you for this tutorial and it helps me to on hold from buying dedicated SMTP providers as suggested by Woocommerce.

    1. Con Schneider Avatar
      Con Schneider

      You are welcome. Glad it was helpful.

  6. Mehul Avatar

    Hi,

    I am using a staging site and my email are not getting delivered, they appear in the email log though. I have used SMTP services, but the issue persists. Can you please help with anything else that i can do.

    1. Con Schneider Avatar
      Con Schneider

      Hi there,

      If you see the mails being logged and your SMTP does not help, then your mail server reputation is probably too deteriorated and you need to use another mail provider. I use https://sendgrid.com/ in combination with https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-sendgrid-smtp/ for such cases.

  7. Hi, I have a issue,when customer is placing a order on the website then blank email going to the admin. How I can resolve it. I have already try to check delete the all plugins but it’s not work. I have upload woocommece old version something 3 still email get the blank. and also my email has going very late and I have tried all the things such as install the SMTP plugin but it’s not working they are showing permanent address. Please if anyone solve my problem so let me know as soon as possible it’s urgent.

    Thanks

    1. Con Schneider Avatar
      Con Schneider

      Hi there,

      So you have an email log and the mails get logged, but all mails are blank, without content, correct? What might be happening is that your theme is overwriting the WooCommerce mail template files (for reference: https://docs.woocommerce.com/document/template-structure/) and these template files need an update.

      1. Hi, I have tried this, and let see what the result gets, but there is an issue my woocommerce email going very delaying of the user and the admin. how I can get an email notification and confirmation of the user very fast. can you help me with this? I have already changed the hosting but still, emails are going very late. I hope you understand my point and will let me know the solution to this problem.

        1. Con Schneider Avatar
          Con Schneider

          Hi again,

          > I have already changed the hosting but still, emails are going very late.

          I would try a dedicated transactional mail provider for this, i.e. Sendgrid: https://sendgrid.com/ + https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-sendgrid-smtp/

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