Why doesn’t WordPress send emails without any configuration?

• The easy answer is, it does… sometimes.
• Some hosts and website work without any editing to the WordPress install or even the plugins to send emails from forms. It’ uses the PHP Mail function.
• But some hosts don’t have that running or it is very ineffecting in sending email, so a plugin needs to be installed to send those emails

What is SMTP?

• The default method of sending any emails is SMTP (simple mail transfer protocol).
• It’s a way to send email from your website to your visitors through your email provider.
  • If you don’t have a dedicated domain email provider, you an also use Gmail, Outlook and other free email providers with a little configuration.
• The basic information to send email through SMTP is

  • The server address : will be something like smtp.gmail.com

  • The username. Often it will be the full email address to send FROM : ie – something@gmail.com

  • The password for the account

  • The protocol to use and it’s accompanying port

    • 25 – basic, unencrypted SMTP port. This sends email from the site/app directly to the email server with no protection. It’s often restricted by many email servers and ISPs.
    • 465 : Another port that was used up until recently, but it’s not recommended any longer. It uses SSL ports but is actually now used for other types of internet traffic, and can be blocked or filtered by many ISPs and email providers.
    • 587 : The recommended port to send SMTP traffic. It uses TLS encryption which will ensure the email is submitted security.

    What plugins can be used to send emails from WordPress

    • Easy WP SMTP Plugin – my default SMTP plugin. Easy to confiure, it’s free, and comes with many preconfigured hosts like Gmail, Yahoo! and Outlook. Sends a test email to any email you wish to make sure everything work.
    • Mail SMTP Gateway Plugin – Another great SMTP plugin. This one has many options and can be tough for inexpreienced users to configure the eadvanced options.
    • WP Email SMTP Plugin – Another free plugins that has all the usual options. Some of the most popular included settings are from email, from name, mailer, return path, host, port, authentication, encryption, username and password.

What are your experiences or questions about sending emails from your website? Leave them below, or send them to me @BeBizzy on Twitter!