Send site mail through your own SMTP
Updated
A site sends two kinds of email: the notification that tells the business about a form, and the optional confirmation to the visitor. By default a site on our servers sends both through a shared default sender. You can send them through the business's own email provider instead, with the FluentSMTP plugin that is installed on every site.
How the site sends mail
The top of the Forms & Email page in WordPress admin says which sender the site uses. There are four messages.
| Message | What it means |
|---|---|
| Form emails are sent through FluentSMTP, using its connection. | FluentSMTP has a connection, and it sends the form emails. The message names the provider. |
| Form emails are sent by the default sender from an address. | The site is on our servers and uses the default sender. The message shows the address it sends from. |
| The default sender isn't set up on this server yet, so form emails aren't sent. | The site is on our servers, but the default sender isn't available. Set up FluentSMTP to send form emails. |
| Form emails are sent by this server's own mail function. | The site is on another host and has no FluentSMTP connection. Many hosts block that function or send its mail to spam, so set up FluentSMTP. |
The default sender and its daily limit
The default sender always sends from one address of ours, because email providers reject or junk messages from a domain the sender can't sign for. Each site can send 100 emails a day through it. The limit resets at midnight UTC.
When a site reaches the limit, the Forms & Email page shows a warning, and later form emails that day aren't sent. Recent deliveries lists each of them as "Not sent: the daily limit was reached". To send more, set up FluentSMTP.
Set up FluentSMTP
- Sign in to WordPress admin and open Forms & Email.
- Scroll to the Custom SMTP section and select Open FluentSMTP settings.
- Add a connection with the details of the business's email provider, and save it.
- Return to Forms & Email. The message at the top now names the FluentSMTP connection.
- Optional: enter an address in Custom From address. Use an address the connection is allowed to send from. When the field is empty, the email comes from FluentSMTP's own From address.
- Select Save changes.
While FluentSMTP has a connection, it sends the form emails in place of the default sender, and the daily limit of the default sender no longer applies.
What FluentSMTP keeps
FluentSMTP keeps a log of the emails it sends, including what visitors typed in the forms, for 14 days. Treat that log as private, and tell the business owner that it exists.