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When you are not receiving an email, it is easy to assume that the plugin is not sending the email. Most often this is not the case as there can be many reasons for an email to not arrive in the inbox of the recipient (some of these are outside the control of the plugin).
We have some really good resource here that should help you identify the true source of the issue so it can be addressed. Please take a few moments to read through this post and it will help you greatly.
There is an easy way to determine if the plugin sent the email or not and narrow down the actual source of the issue. The debug file of the plugin in question can help us with this. If the debug file of the plugin says that an email was sent successfully but you are not receiving the email on the other end, then use the following checklist to identify the real source of the issue.
Fixing the issue becomes easier once you find the source of the issue.
How do you know that the plugin sent the email?
If you run a test transaction with the debug option enabled from the settings menu there will be an entry in the debug log that looks similar to the following:
Email successfully sent to buyer_email@gmail.comThe emails are sent using WordPress’s mail functionality which is very robust and always works. When you purchased our plugin(s) from our site, you got the email, didn’t you? So you know it works.
Is the email functionality Working on my Site?
We have written a plugin that you can use to test if the email functionality is working on your server/WP install. A lot of the times we find that the user is using a misconfigured server that is blocking outgoing emails from WordPress so it helps to identify that first.
i) Download the email functionality tester plugin from the following link:
ii) Read the following PDF documentation to learn how to use this tester plugin:
https://www.tipsandtricks-hq.com/wp-content/uploads/docs/using-the-email-tester-plugin.pdf
Why isn’t the email arriving in the inbox then?
There are a myriad of reasons that affect the email deliverability. When the plugin sends the email it actually tells the server to send the email so the server actually has to do the job of sending the email so it can appear in your inbox.
The following are some factors that usually contribute to an email delivery failure:
Checklist 1) Make sure you are using an email address that uses your domain name as your “From Email Address” field value. Yes, the plugin lets you send emails using any “From email address” value but some servers won’t deliver the email if you don’t send it from an address that uses your domain name.
Example – Lets say you can use the following two addresses as your “From Email Address” field value (the 1st one is an email address on your domain, the 2nd one is your gmail address):
1. XYZ Company <jon@xyz-company.com>
2. XYZ Company <jon.doe@gmail.com>
You should use the 1st example in your plugin settings.
If you are not receiving email then there is a good chance that the email is being blocked if you are using the 2nd example as your from email address value.
Checklist 2) Some servers have a daily limit on how many emails you can send out. If this limit is reached the server then starts to ignore any more request to send emails from your account. For example, Godaddy puts a daily limit on it’s shared hosting accounts.
Checklist 3) Some servers only allow emails with SMTP configuration (This is to stop hackers from being able to send spam emails from your server using another script). You can get a WordPress plugin to configure SMTP for your WordPress install. Here are some good SMTP plugins:
https://wordpress.org/plugins/easy-wp-smtp/
https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-smtp/
You basically just install an SMTP plugin then get your hosting provider to give you the SMTP details of your site (so you can plug the values in the SMTP plugin’s settings configuration).
Once you configure SMTP, all the emails that gets sent out by WordPress will use this configuration and your server won’t block it anymore.
Checklist 4) Emails are getting marked as a spam by the mail client (Gmail,Yahoo etc.). Emails can get marked as a spam for a variety of reasons. This post explains a few of them:
If emails sent from your server is going to the spam folder, you can always put some instructions like the following on your “Thank You” page to help your customers:
“Please whitelist our email address(<insert your from email address>) to ensure that our emails do not go to the spam/junk mail folder.”
Checklist 5) Some servers actually put a delay before the emails are sent out. For example, Godaddy has a 30 minute minimum delay before any email is sent out to check and make sure the request is not a spam. So make sure you wait long enough for the email to arrive before coming to the conclusion that the email was lost.
Usually, if you contact your hosting provider and ask them then they will be able to tell you if the server is blocking the emails.
Note: there can also be server delays (queues) from PayPal or your mail server
Checklist 6) If you are doing sandbox testing then do not expect to receive an email in your sandbox account. Sandbox email addresses are simulated email addresses, so real emails can’t be routed there. You can’t receive a real email in your sandbox email account (example: jon_1325352635_biz@somedomain.com). If in doubt, you can try sending an email to your sandbox address from your real email and that will give you a good idea.
Checklist 7) Make sure you are using a verified email address as your “From Email Address” field value. Yes, the plugin lets you send emails using any “From email address” value but there is a good chance that the email will get marked as spam by the mail servers if it was sent using an *unverified* from email address.
Example – Lets say you can use the following two addresses as your “From Email Address” field value (the 1st one is a verified email address where someone could send an email back, the 2nd one is just a made up *non-verified* email address):
1. XYZ Company <sales@xyz-company.com>
2. XYZ Company <test@xyz-company.com>
There is a very good chance that the emails sent by the plugin will get marked as spam if you use the 2nd one as your from email address value.
Google has a really good help article that explains this in more details:
https://support.google.com/mail/bin/answer.py?hl=en&ctx=mail&answer=1366858
Checklist
Make sure the “To” and “From” email addresses are not the same. Some servers block the email if the “to” and the “from” addresses are the same. For example, lets say you have specified
"jon.doe@yahoo.com"as the"From Email Address"value in the settings menu of eStore and then you are purchasing a product using this same email address for testing purpose then the “To” and “From” addresses are going to be same and your server may block this email.It is safer to use an email address with your domain name as the “From Email Address” value. For example,
"sales@your-domain.com"is much better than using"jon.doe@yahoo.com".Checklist 9) Add the physical address of your business in the email body. Having a valid physical address in the email can help prevent it from going to the spam box sometimes.
Checklist 10) Turn off the “Shorten Encrypted Download Links” feature from eStore settings (if you have enabled it). Some mail servers block emails if it has shortened URLs in it (it triggers their suspicious email filter).
Examples
The following posts have good examples of other users who faced a similar issue and how they resolved it:
https://support.tipsandtricks-hq.com/forums/topic/not-receiving-customer-email-after-purchase
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