Email Essentials vs Post SMTP – Complete

Email Essentials vastly reduces the chances of your emails being marked as spam or being rejected. Originally a debugging tool, it has grown into a full-fledged email enhancement plugin. Please note that this plugin is not a “we support any type of transport” Email plugin. For other protocols than SMTP, but rather to enhance the email sending capabilities of WordPress. If you need to send emails with other protocols than SMTP, this plugin is not for you. You might want to look at plugins like Post SMTP (not affiliated). And since version 6.0.0, after more than 10 years of development and internal use, this plugin is now a FOSS plugin, meaning it is free to use, modify and distribute under the GPLv2 license. In return, we ask you to support the development of this plugin by contributing to the codebase, reporting bugs, and helping others in the community. Responsible disclosure: If you find a vulnerability, please email us at [email protected]. Features Set a good From name and email address, automatically correcting it if needed. For example, a contact form is sent from the visitors email address, resulting in an invalid Sender address. This plugin will correct it to a valid email address. This plugin automatically corrects it. Correct envelope-from address; often forgotten, but important for deliverability. Reformat as HTML with plain text alternative; will detect the use of HTML ensures that emails are sent as HTML with a plain text alternative. Process shortcodes in your email content. UTF8 recoding, to ensure that special characters are correctly encoded in the email. Email Essentials allows for adding CSS, header, footer, and body template using filters, see below. Convert CSS to inline styles for better support in email clients SMTP configuration Send emails to multiple addressees as separate emails S/MIME signing, using a supplied certificate, to ensure the authenticity of the email. DKIM signing, and providing all information needed to set up DKIM signing for your domain. Allow redirecting emails sent to the administrator to other email addresses based on the email subject. Allow redirecting emails sent to the moderators (e.g., for comments). Keep a history of outgoing emails (debugging, cleared on deactivation) Email receipt tracking (for investigative purposes only, see GDPR note) Re-send button for failed emails Allow sending emails delayed, to prevent sending too many emails at once. (Beta feature) Important Note This tool is for users who understand email delivery. If unsure, ask for help. Under GDPR, storing and tracking emails is prohibited. The history feature is for investigative purposes only! External services Email Essentials uses one external service by default, two if you create and define your own IP services. CloudFlare DNS over HTTPS (DoH). This is used to resolve domain names to IP addresses when (for example) checking SPF or DKIM records. In theory, it is possible to use PHPs own dns_get_record function, but in practice this often fails due to server DNS-resolve misconfiguration. Using CloudFlare’s DoH service ensures reliable DNS resolution. We only send the hostname (the domain part) to CloudFlare, no other data. Explicitly, we do NOT send any other information. The plugin can use an IP-address relay service to accurately determine the sender’s IP address. This is required to accurately check that the sender’s IP address is authorized to send email for the domain (SPF check). To use this, you will need to set up your own service, see documentation on filter acato_email_essentials_ip_services. Without this service, IP detection can be inaccurate because it will use the website itself as a relay. Use of a reverse proxy, load balancer etc. can lead to incorrect IP detection. WordPress Filters acato_email_essentials_settings — Filter plugin settings. acato_email_essentials_defaults — Filter default settings. acato_email_essentials_subject — Filter email subject. acato_email_essentials_body — Filter HTML body of the email. acato_email_essentials_head — Filter HEAD section of HTML email. acato_email_essentials_css — Filter CSS for the email. acato_email_essentials_minify_css — Filter CSS minification. acato_email_essentials_mail_is_throttled — Check if mail should be throttled. acato_email_essentials_mail_throttle_time_window — Set mail throttle time window. acato_email_essentials_mail_throttle_max_count_per_time_window — Set max emails per time window. acato_email_essentials_mail_throttle_batch_size — Set mail batch size. acato_email_essentials_ip_services — Define custom IP services for accurately determining the sender’s IP address. acato_email_essentials_ip_service — Filter individual IP service URLs. acato_email_essentials_website_root_path — Filter to supply the correct website root path in case of non-standard setups. acato_email_essentials_development_tlds — Filter development/local TLDs. WordPress Filters in detail Plugin Settings acato_email_essentials_settings Parameters: – (array) $settings The current settings of the plugin. Expected return: – (array) The new settings of the plugin. acato_email_essentials_defaults Parameters: – (array) $defaults The current default settings of the plugin. Expected return: – (array) The new default settings of the plugin. Email Content acato_email_essentials_subject Parameters: – (string) $the_subject Subject for the email. – (PHPMailer) $mailer The PHPMailer object (by reference). Expected return: – (string) The (altered) Subject. acato_email_essentials_body Parameters: – (string) $should_be_html A text that should be html, but might not yet be, your job to make a nice HTML body. – (PHPMailer) $mailer The PHPMailer object (by reference). Expected return: – (string) A text that should be html. acato_email_essentials_head Parameters: – (string) $the_head_section HTML that is the HEAD section of the HTML email. – (PHPMailer) $mailer The PHPMailer object (by reference). Expected return: – (string) The altered HEAD section of the HTML email. acato_email_essentials_css Parameters: – (string) $the_css CSS for the email (empty by default). – (PHPMailer) $mailer The PHPMailer object (by reference). Expected return: – (string) The (altered) CSS. acato_email_essentials_minify_css Parameters: – (string) $css CSS to be minified. Expected return: – (string) The minified CSS. Mail Throttling acato_email_essentials_mail_is_throttled Parameters: – (bool) $is_throttled Whether the mail is currently throttled. – (string) $ip The sender’s IP address. – (int) $mails_recently_sent Number of mails recently sent from this IP. Expected return: – (bool) Whether the mail should be throttled. acato_email_essentials_mail_throttle_time_window Parameters: – (int) $time_window Time window in seconds for counting sent emails. Expected return: – (int) The (altered) time window in seconds. acato_email_essentials_mail_throttle_max_count_per_time_window Parameters: – (int) $count Maximum number of emails allowed per time window. Expected return: – (int) The (altered) maximum count. acato_email_essentials_mail_throttle_batch_size Parameters: – (int) $size Number of emails to send in a single batch. Expected return: – (int) The (altered) batch size. IP Detection acato_email_essentials_ip_services Parameters: – (array) $services The current list of IP services used to determine the sender’s IP address. Expected return: – (array) The (altered) list of IP services. The services must be keyed with ipv4, ipv6 and dual-stack. The values must be URLs that return the IP address in plain text. The dual-stack service should return an IPv6 address if available, otherwise an IPv4 address, never both. You can set-up your own service like this; You will need a webserver that can run PHP, and you need a DNS service that allows you to manually add records. You will need three webspaces, for example; ipv4.myservice.com, ipv6.myservice.com and dual-stack.myservice.com. You could use the same webspace for all three, but you will still need three subdomains on the service. For the ipv4 subdomain, ONLY register an A record, pointing to the webserver’s IP address. For the ipv6 subdomain, ONLY register an AAAA record, pointing to the webserver’s IPv6 address. For the dual-stack subdomain, register both an A and an AAAA record, pointing to the webserver’s IP addresses. Create a file called index.php in each of the webspaces with the following content: php <?php header('Content-Type: text/plain'); print $_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR']; That’s it. You can now use these services in the plugin settings like this; `php add_filter(‘acato_email_essentials_ip_services’, ‘my_custom_ip_services’); function my_custom_ip_services($services) { // Add your custom services here $services[‘ipv4’] = ‘https://ipv4.myservice.com’; $services[‘ipv6’] = ‘https://ipv6.myservice.com’; $services[‘dual-stack’] = ‘https://dual-stack.myservice.com’; return $services; } ` acato_email_essentials_ip_service Parameters: – (string) $service The URL of the IP service for the given type. – (string) $type The type of IP service (‘ipv4’, ‘ipv6’, or ‘dual-stack’). Expected return: – (string) The (altered) IP service URL. Filter to modify individual IP service URLs based on type. acato_email_essentials_website_root_path Parameters: – (string) $path The current website root path. Expected return: – (string) The (possibly altered) website root path. Filter to supply the correct website root path in case of non-standard setups. acato_email_essentials_development_tlds Parameters: – (array) $tlds Array of top-level domains considered as development environments. Expected return: – (array) The (altered) array of development TLDs. Filter to modify which TLDs are treated as development/local environments. Default values are ‘local’ and ‘test’. Scripts/styles In the public/scripts and public/styles folder you find the JS and CSS files used in the plugin admin area. These files are processed with Webpack, just so it works in all recent browsers. Script is nearly identical to the source. You can find the source files in the src/scripts and src/styles folders. If you feel the need to modify these files, you can change them there, and run npm install ; npm run build to create the production files. Translation files You can use npm run i18n to generate the POT file for translation, update the PO files in the languages folder, and compile to MO/php files. This is a one-task-does-all; run it, change the translations, run it again. Done. See package.json for more details or individual commands. Tools In the tools folder you will find a script to generate DKIM keys, should you want to use DKIM signing. rename to remove the .txt extension and run it in a shell. Tools are provided as-is, without support. Use at your own risk. Read the scripts before using them. You DO NOT HAVE TO USE these scripts, you can generate DKIM keys with any tool you like. Arbitrary section For advanced configuration and custom IP services, see the plugin documentation or source code.

👑 Go Pro | 💻Live Demo | 🔌Extensions | 📱Mobile Application WordPress Mail SMTP Plugin Are you facing the WordPress not sending emails issue❓Don’t worry! Install the Post SMTP Plugin aka (WordPress mail SMTP plugin), for smooth WordPress email deliverability. Over 400,000 website owners use Post SMTP daily to send WordPress emails securely and reliably💯 using Gmail SMTP, Microsoft Office 365/Outlook, and other SMTP integrations. Post SMTP is a free, next-generation WordPress SMTP plugin that improves email deliverability for your WordPress site. The best part is that to ensure high email deliverability the Post SMTP plugin offers 15+ SMTP mailer options, including Gmail, Brevo, Microsoft 365 SMTP (formerly Office 365), Amazon SES, Zoho Mail, Postmark, Mailgun, SendGrid, etc. With the ✨Post SMTP Pro version✨, you can unlock even more advanced features, such as detailed email logs, email delivery stats and reporting, email open-tracking, premium SMTP integration (Microsoft 365, Amazon SES, and Zoho Mail SMTP), multiple options for email alerts (i.e., Teams, Webhook, Twilio, and Slack), and much more. What is SMTP, and Why Do You Need It? SMTP, short for Simple Mail Transfer Protocol, is the most widely used protocol for online email transmission. SMTP configuration with proper authentication for your WordPress site ensures that your WordPress emails do not end up in spam. By default, WordPress sends emails using the PHP mail function, which isn’t ideal because most WordPress hosting servers don’t support PHP email. On top of that, most email clients, such as Outlook (Office 365 / Microsoft365), Yahoo, Gmail, Brevo, Zoho, Amazon SES, Mailgun, etc., automatically block or mark spam emails that lack proper authentication. That’s why you need to install the Post SMTP plugin on your WordPress site to configure the SMTP mailer of your choice with one-click SMTP setup for Gmail, Microsoft 365, and more. How Does Post SMTP Work? Post SMTP allows you to easily replace the default PHP mail function (wp_mail) of your WordPress site with the SMTP mailer of your choice, like Microsoft 365(Office 365), Brevo, Zoho, SendGrid, Mailgun SMTP, Gmail (Gmail SMTP Server), Post Mark, Amazon SES etc., which in turn improves WordPress email deliverability. This WordPress mail SMTP plugin provides detailed email logs, email open tracking, email alerts, and a mobile app to monitor WordPress email deliverability. 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Ultimately, this WordPress SMTP plugin helps you fix all your issues related to WordPress not sending emails. ⚡ Features That Make Post SMTP Stand Out ✅ Quick Setup Wizard: Easy-to-use and powerful 3-Step Setup Wizard for quick WordPress SMTP configuration with One-click SMTP setup for Gmail SMTP and Microsoft 365 SMTP. ✅ SPF, DKIM & DMARC Checks: Keep an eye on domain’s reputation with out built-in Spam Score Checker that looks at your DNS records.. ✅ Detailed Email Logs: Quickly view, filter, and check the status of all your WordPress emails and error messages with a simple click, ensuring your email logs are always up to date. ✅ Post SMTP Mobile App: Get WordPress email alerts directly on your mobile phone so you can track email deliverability on the go. ✅ Extensive Email Reporting: Get a thorough report at a glance regarding your WordPress email deliverability performance, including email open tracking and other important stats. ✅ Resend Email Attachments [PRO]: With a single click, you can resend any email attachment right through your email log screen, maintaining a seamless record in your email logs. ✅ OAuth 2.0 Support: Authenticate all major SMTP service providers’ accounts (i.e., Microsoft Office 365/Microsoft365, Brevo, Gmail SMTP (Gmail one-click setup), Amazon SES, SendGrid, Mailgun, etc.) securely using APIs. ✅ Fallback Mailing: Easily set up a backup WordPress SMTP mailer to send any transactional email in case of a failure with the main mailer. ✅ Instant Failure Notification: In case of any WordPress email delivery failure, you’ll get an instant email alert, Slack notification, SMS (via Twilio), push notification (via webhook and Chrome Extension), etc. ✅ Free Chrome Extension:Receive all your WordPress email alerts for failed email deliveries directly into your Chrome browser window. ✅ Weekly Email Summary: Get a snapshot of your WordPress email deliverability report right in your inbox every week, which reveals the total number of emails, the number of failed emails, total successful email deliveries, and your recent email logs. ✅ Unparalleled Customer Support: We offer multiple support options, including email, a WordPress forum, and even one-on-one expert assistance for WordPress SMTP Configuration and all your email delivery issues. ⚡ Post SMTP Mobile App: Get an Instant Pulse of Your WordPress Emails ✅ Keep track of Your Emails: You can monitor all the emails sent from your WordPress site and check the status of each email. ✅ Get Instant Alerts: When an email fails to deliver, you will receive an instant notification on your phone. ✅ Resend Failed Emails [PRO]: With one tap on your app, you can resend any failed email. Preview Any Email: You can preview your emails and see how it looks. ✅ Connect Multiple Sites [PRO]: Monitor email logs and get email failure notifications (email alerts) for all your WordPress sites right from the app. ✅ Troubleshoot Errors: Quickly fix email failure issues by viewing the error details with a single tap. SMTP Mailer Options for Post SMTP With Post SMTP, you get many SMTP mailer options, such as: SMTP.com SMTP – Newly Added CloudFlare SMTP – Newly Added Sweego SMTP – Newly Added Mailtrap SMTP – Newly Added Emailit SMTP Resend SMTP MailerSend SMTP Brevo (formerly Sendinblue) SMTP Microsoft 365 SMTP (Formerly Office 365 and Outlook) Gmail SMTP (Gmail API, G Suite, Google Workspace) Amazon SES SMTP Zoho Mail SMTP Mandrill SMTP Mailgun SMTP SendGrid SMTP Mailjet SMTP SparkPost SMTP Postmark SMTP Elastic Email SMTP Other SMTP (To connect any SMTP server) You often need to install a different WordPress mail smtp plugin for each SMTP mailer setup. However, with Post SMTP, you can set up all popular SMTP providers, such as Gmail one-click setup, Microsoft Office 365, Mailgun, Amazon SES, Zoho Mail, etc. Microsoft 365 SMTP Millions of businesses around the world use Microsoft 365 (formerly Office 365) or Outlook for their email communications. With Post SMTP Pro, you can easily connect your existing Outlook or Microsoft 365 (formerly Office365) account with WordPress via one-click SMTP setup to improve email deliverability. 👉 For more details, check out our guide on how to set up Microsoft 365 for WordPress emails. Amazon SES SMTP Amazon SES (Simple Email Service) is a cloud-based email service that can send transactional and mass emails. SES is cost-effective, reliable, and scalable. Using the Post SMTP Pro, you can securely integrate your Amazon SES account with WordPress via APIs so that you can send large numbers of emails on a budget. 👉 For more details, check out our Amazon SES documentation. 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Activate Gmail One-Click Setup and let Post SMTP Setup Wizard handle all the API-related technicalities. ✅ Microsoft Teams Notifications: This WordPress SMTP plugin enables you to receive real-time notifications for your emails on Microsoft Teams with a simple webhook. ✅ Native SMTP Integration: You can use this WordPress SMTP plugin to securely configure 15+ SMTP service provider accounts, such as Microsoft 365 (Microsoft Office 365), Gmail SMTP, Amazon SES, Zoho Mail, Mailgun, Postmark, etc., with WordPress using APIs. ✅ Twilio (SMS) With this WordPress SMTP plugin, you can easily configure and receive all your WordPress email failure alerts through SMS by connecting your Twilio account. ✅ Secondary SMTP Connection: Using the Post SMTP Pro, you can set up multiple SMTP mailers so that for any reason, whenever an email fails to deliver, Post SMTP will automatically route that email through the secondary SMTP connection. In turn, this will improve your email delivery rate. ✅ Weekly Email Health Report: As a Post SMTP Pro member, you get a weekly email report that reveals all your deliverability statistics at a glance, such as the total number of emails sent from your WordPress site, the number of failed emails, the total number of successful email deliveries, and the complete email logs report so you can identify any issues right away without login into your WordPress. ✅ Email Open Tracking: Are you curious about which of your emails get opened? With Post SMTP Pro, you can easily view email open tracking right on your email log screen, which greatly enhances your ability to analyze the performance of your WordPress emails. ✅ Auto Resend Failed Emails: With Post SMTP Pro, you can effortlessly increase your WordPress email delivery success rate by simply specifying the number of resubmission attempts after the first failed submission. ✅ Email Batching and Quota Scheduling: Avoid any spam detection and daily email limit exceeding issues with the Post SMTP email batching and quota scheduling feature. As a pro user, you can easily specify the duration and number of emails per batch and choose how often to send the emails (hourly, daily, weekly, or monthly) for optimal email delivery. ✅ Priority Support: We offer exceptional customer support to all the Post SMTP Pro users. You can access our team of WordPress experts on one-on-one email support 24/7 for any WordPress email-related issue. Also, we offer WordPress SMTP Configuration service on demand. 🆕 MainWP Post SMTP Extension – NEW Manage WordPress SMTP Configuration Across All Your Sites From A Single Dashboard With MainWP Post SMTP Extension, you can: Set up and sync your SMTP settings for all your sites with one click. Ensure email deliverability with backup SMTP connections. Receive instant email failure alerts via email webhook, Slack, SMS, and Microsoft Teams. Track and resend your WordPress emails with a dedicated mobile app Access detailed email logs of all your sites in one place MainWP Post SMTP Extension is the ultimate solution for WordPress email management. Get it today and enjoy the benefits of easy and efficient WP SMTP management.🙃 ⛑ Need Help? Get Expert Assistance on Demand!!! With our Expert Assistance, you can get help with email deliverability and SMTP plugin configuration for Gmail, Microsoft Office 365, and any SMTP setup for WordPress. All you need is to click here, fill out the form, sit back, and relax while our WordPress expert sets up your SMTP configuration. Also, you can request us to configure all your DNS records for proper email authentication. In short, our Expert Assistance is your one-stop destination for all your WordPress email delivery issues. Compatibility and Support Contact Form 7 Woocommerce New User Approve Password Protected Elementor Forms Gravity Forms Login Designer Visual Forms Builder Mailster Newsletter plugin SendPress Newsletters WP HTML Mail Email Templates .. and every other plugin that uses the WordPress API wp_mail to send mail! Try Our Other Awesome WordPress Plugins Gutena Forms – Create modern, responsive contact forms directly in the Gutenberg block editor. Add advanced fields, protect against spam with reCAPTCHA and Cloudflare Turnstile, manage form entries, and more. Password Protected – Secure your WordPress site, posts, pages, and categories with simple password protection. 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WPExperts WooCommerce Store – Explore premium WooCommerce plugins and professional solutions by WPExperts.== Requirements == WordPress v6.2 and above is recommended PHP v7.6 and above is recommended. Memory should be at least 800KiB per processing at idle. Ensure your email service provider allows SMTP connection through 3rd party applications, if not you can have it enabled.(Other SMTP) For reliable email deliverability, valid credentials are required.