Filevue vs Meow Mailer – Free SMTP, Everything Included

Watch the full overview – see Filevue in action and learn how to set up your secure client portal in minutes. 🌐 Visit the website: https://filevue.app 🛟 Get support: https://www.filevue.app/support/ Filevue turns your WordPress site into a private client portal. Create clients, upload files into organized folders, and give each client their own login where they can view, download, and acknowledge documents, upload their own files, and update their personal details and password from My Account. No WordPress account needed. Your site name is used for all branding. No “Powered by” labels, no third-party logos. The portal adapts to your WordPress admin color scheme automatically. Useful Links 🌐 Official Website 🎥 Video Overview 📥 Download Filevue Free (WordPress.org) 🛟 Filevue Support Portal — official help from the Filevue team (tickets, setup, bug reports) 💬 WordPress.org Support Forum — public community Q&A on wordpress.org (not the Filevue portal above) ⭐ Leave a Review Filevue Free vs Filevue Pro Filevue Free is available on WordPress.org and includes everything you need to run a secure client portal for a small practice or team. Filevue Pro removes usage caps and unlocks advanced tools for agencies and growing businesses. Compare plans and pricing on filevue.app. Included in Filevue Free Up to 5 clients, 20 folders, 100 files, and 2 staff members Private client portal with encrypted logins (no WordPress account for clients) Client self-service: upload files to folders, update profile details (name, email, phone, address), and change password from the portal Drag-and-drop uploads, custom folders with icons and colors, inline PDF/image/MP4 preview, and PowerPoint (.ppt, .pptx) uploads Editable data sheets with Excel export Branded credential and new-file email notifications Built-in SMTP with Gmail, Outlook, and Yahoo presets Portal Manager and Portal Contributor team roles One-click portal preview as any client Basic portal appearance controls (button colors, accent, border radius) in Settings Multiple projects per client, staff portal, and activity notifications (within free usage caps) Last Seen tracking, client search, pagination, and data protection options Admin update banner when a new version is available Multilingual admin and portal strings (22 bundled languages) Filevue Pro adds Unlimited clients, folders, files, and staff Portal Design — full white-label customiser: login and dashboard styling, typography, presets, custom CSS, JSON import/export, and branded email themes Telegram alerts — real-time notifications when files are viewed, downloaded, or acknowledged Image compression — automatic JPEG/PNG resizing on upload Activity log CSV export from the Notifications page Elementor widgets — Login Form, Folder Tree, Recent Files, Client Header, plus dynamic tags and Theme Builder support (Elementor Pro) Priority support through the Filevue Support Portal When you reach a free-plan cap, Filevue shows clear upgrade prompts on the Home page, View Clients, and Edit Client screens. You can still browse, download, and delete existing content normally. Upgrade to Filevue Pro Purchase a license on filevue.app. Monthly, annual, and lifetime billing options are available at checkout. 🏠 Single Site (1 WordPress site) — Purchase Pro — from $49.99/year 🏢 Agency (up to 5 sites) — Purchase Agency — from $99/year ♾️ Unlimited (unlimited sites) — Purchase Unlimited — from $149.99/year After purchase, install or update to the Pro package and activate your license under Filevue in the WordPress admin. Features at a Glance Private client portal – each client gets a unique login with access to only their files Document acknowledgment – clients or staff can acknowledge they have reviewed documents, with automatic tracking of who acknowledged and when Client self-service – clients upload files, update personal details, and change their password from the portal Drag-and-drop file uploads – upload single or multiple files from the admin or from the client portal Custom folders – organize files with named folders, SVG icons, and accent colors Drag to reorganize – move files between folders without reloading the page Inline file preview – clients can view PDFs, images, and MP4 videos directly in the browser Video and presentation uploads – upload MP4 for inline playback, plus PowerPoint (.ppt, .pptx) for download Editable data sheets – attach spreadsheets to folders with rows, columns, and Excel export Branded email notifications – send credentials on setup and automatic alerts every time new files are uploaded Built-in SMTP – configure email delivery with one-click presets for Gmail, Outlook, and Yahoo Team roles – assign Portal Manager or Portal Contributor roles to staff members One-click portal preview – preview the portal as any client without sharing credentials Portal appearance – basic styling in Settings (Free); full Portal Design customiser (Pro) Toggle file extensions – show or hide file extensions in folder listings AES-256-CBC encryption – client passwords and SMTP credentials are encrypted at rest Auto-created portal page – the /client-portal/ page is set up on activation with no manual steps Session security – client sessions expire after 1 hour with manual logout available Data protection – choose whether plugin data is preserved or deleted on uninstall Client Management Create and manage clients from a clean admin dashboard. Create clients with a unique Client ID, encrypted password, optional email, and internal notes. Organize work into multiple projects per client (Pro users with higher volume often rely on unlimited caps). Search, filter, and paginate your client list. View client details in a quick-view modal to copy credentials, check file stats, and open the portal link. Preview the portal as any client with one click. No need to copy or share credentials. File Uploads and Folders Upload and organize client files without leaving the admin. Clients can also upload files directly from their portal. Drag-and-drop single or multi-file uploads (admin and client portal). Create named folders with custom SVG icons and accent colors. Drag files between folders to reorganize instantly. Supported formats: PDF, Word, Excel, PowerPoint (.ppt, .pptx), images (PNG, JPG, GIF), text, ZIP, RAR, and MP4 video (inline player in the portal). Toggle file extension visibility from the Settings page. Client Portal A dedicated, branded login page for your clients. Automatically created at /client-portal/ on activation. No setup needed. Clients log in with their Client ID and password. No WordPress account required. Collapsible folder tree with icons and colors matching the admin setup. Acknowledge documents – clients and staff can acknowledge they have reviewed documents. A green checkmark appears on acknowledged files showing who acknowledged it and when. Upload files to any folder from the portal (upload button on each folder). My Account profile panel: clients update name, email, country, phone, address, and notes, and change their password without contacting you. Inline preview for PDFs, images, and MP4 videos. No download required for those types. PowerPoint (.ppt, .pptx) uploads are supported for secure download from the portal. Secure one-click downloads verified with nonces and path validation. Sessions expire after 1 hour. Clients can log out at any time. Customize basic portal colors from Settings (Free) or use Portal Design for full white-label control (Pro). Data Sheets Share structured data alongside files. Attach editable spreadsheets to any folder. Add rows, columns, and multiple sheets. Clients see a read-only view of data sheets in the portal. Download any data sheet as an Excel file. Available to both admins and clients. Email Notifications Keep clients informed without manual effort. Send branded HTML emails with portal link, Client ID, and password. Clients are automatically notified every time new files are uploaded to their folder. No manual follow-up needed. All emails use your site name and are styled to match your brand. Pro: customise email header, colours, and footer from Portal Design > Emails. SMTP Configuration Reliable email delivery built in. Configure SMTP with a test-before-save approach. Settings activate only after a successful test. One-click presets for Gmail, Outlook, and Yahoo with step-by-step guidance. SMTP passwords encrypted at rest using AES-256-CBC. Team Access Share portal management with your team without giving full site access. Portal Contributor – can manage clients and upload files, but cannot change settings or delete content. Portal Manager – full portal access including settings, user management, and content deletion. Both roles see only the Filevue menu. No access to the rest of WordPress. Staff portal – staff log in on the same portal page (separate tab) and see only projects assigned to them. Security Built with security in mind at every level. Client passwords encrypted with AES-256-CBC using your site’s AUTH_KEY. Upload directory protected with .htaccess rules and a silent index.php. Every action (download, upload, delete, login) is nonce-verified with path traversal protection. Data protection toggle to choose whether plugin data is preserved or removed on uninstall. Supported languages Filevue includes translation files for the WordPress admin and client portal. The Site Language list under Settings > General is provided by WordPress core. If a language (for example Nederlands) is missing there, install the WordPress language pack first via Filevue > Settings (Install buttons) or Dashboard > Updates > Languages, then select it as the site language. English (default) Arabic (ar) Chinese (Simplified) (zh_CN) Dutch (nl_NL, nl_BE) French (fr_FR) German (de_DE) Hindi (hi_IN) Romanian (ro_RO) Russian (ru_RU) Spanish (es_ES) Translation files live in languages/ as .po and compiled .mo pairs. Support Development Filevue Free is open source on WordPress.org. If it saves you time or helps your business, consider supporting continued development: Buy me a coffee

For years, almost every WordPress site I ran ended up with a different plugin just to send email. I never really chose them. I installed whatever looked fine at the time, because honestly there is no clear winner. Most of them advertise features I don’t need, or hide the basics behind a paywall. At one point I simply wanted to see the emails my site had sent, or failed to send, and even that asked me to upgrade. That felt wrong. So I decided to build the simplest and most honest email plugin I could for WordPress. You pick one provider, set it up once, and every email your site sends goes through it. Everything is logged, so you always know what happened. No upsell maze, no ads, nothing basic locked away. That is Meow Mailer, and all of this is free: One provider, set up once. Pick the one you use and forget about it. No confusing multi provider routing. Import from your current SMTP plugin. Already set up with WP Mail SMTP or Easy WP SMTP? Meow Mailer notices and copies the provider, credentials and sender over in one click, so switching never means digging out your API keys again. A fallback for when it breaks, free. Name a second provider (or plain WordPress, which needs no setup) and it steps in only when the first one refuses an email. Your mail still goes out, the log tells you exactly who failed and why, and an alert lets you know your main provider needs a look. A real email log, free. Every email in a clean table with recipient, subject, provider and status (sent, failed, offline, pending). Click any row to read the full message, see the error, and resend it. Many plugins charge for this. Here it is free. Stays out of the way. Until you pick a provider, Meow Mailer doesn’t change how your email is sent, so activating it never breaks what already works. It still logs everything WordPress sends on its own, so you get the log from the moment you activate it. Never miss a failure. A dashboard warning appears when emails fail, so silent problems don’t go unnoticed. Dismiss it once you have had a look and it stays away until a new email fails. Failure alerts by email, free. Get told when your site stops being able to send, instead of finding out from a customer. The alert is sent by WordPress itself rather than your provider, so it still reaches you when the provider is the thing that broke. One alert per hour at most, however many emails fail. Alerts on Slack, Discord or Teams, free. Paste a webhook URL and the alerts and the weekly summary are posted to your chat as well, so finding out that email is broken never depends on email. Handy when you look after a lot of sites. Individual emails are never posted anywhere: this tells you about your site, not about the people it writes to. Weekly summary, free. A short email with what was sent, what failed, and the most common errors. Nothing is sent on a quiet week. Control WordPress’s own emails. Switch off the notifications WordPress sends by itself: new user registrations, password and email change confirmations, comment moderation, automatic update reports. Password resets are never affected, so nobody gets locked out. Background sending. Email goes out after the page has loaded, so your visitors never wait on the mail server. Offline mode. Capture every email in the log without sending. Perfect for staging and development. Filters and export. Filter by status and provider, search by subject or recipient, and export to CSV. Test and resend. Check your setup with an HTML or plain text test, and resend any logged message in one click. Auto prune. Keep logs forever, or delete anything older than 7, 30 or 90 days. Multisite ready. Set your provider up once on the main site and let every site of the network use it, or leave each site to configure its own. Email logs always stay per site. Light and private. No bloat, no tracking. Your credentials can live in wp-config.php instead of the database. What Meow Mailer will never do No open or click tracking. Other email plugins advertise it as a premium feature. It works by putting an invisible pixel in every message and rewriting every link to pass through a redirect, which means logging when your recipients read their mail and what they clicked. That is surveillance of the people your site writes to, it is personal data you then have to account for under the GDPR, and rewritten links make your email look more like spam, not less. Meow Mailer does not do it, and that is not a gap waiting to be filled in a Pro version. There is no Pro version. Supported providers Generic SMTP, Mailgun, Brevo, SendGrid, Amazon SES, Postmark, SMTP2GO, Mailjet, Resend, MailerSend, Maileroo, Gmail / Google Workspace (OAuth 2.0), Microsoft 365 / Outlook (OAuth 2.0), and Zoho Mail (OAuth 2.0). About Meow Apps Meow Mailer is part of the Meow Apps family of plugins, focused on doing one thing well with a clean, modern interface. External services Meow Mailer contacts an external service only after you choose and configure an email provider. Until then (the default “None”) and in “Offline” mode, it sends nothing anywhere. When you pick a provider, your outgoing email (recipients, subject, body, headers and attachments) and the credentials you entered are sent to that provider so it can be delivered, and only when your site actually sends an email. For Gmail, Microsoft 365 and Zoho Mail, Meow Mailer also contacts their OAuth servers when you connect and refresh your account. Nothing else is ever sent. You choose a single provider. Generic SMTP talks only to the server you configure. For the others, please review their terms and privacy policy: Mailgun (terms, privacy), Brevo (terms, privacy), SendGrid (terms, privacy), Amazon SES (terms, privacy), Postmark (terms, privacy), SMTP2GO (terms, privacy), Mailjet (terms, privacy), Resend (terms, privacy), MailerSend (terms and privacy), Maileroo (terms, privacy), Gmail (terms, privacy), Microsoft 365 (terms, privacy), and Zoho Mail (terms, privacy). Development Meow Mailer is open source. The full source, including the React code used to build the admin interface, lives on GitHub.