Email delivery check

Contact forms, password resets and order emails all go out through WordPress’s own email function. When that breaks (an SMTP password changes, a mail service stops, the host blocks email), nothing on the website looks wrong, and the client usually finds out weeks later. The email delivery check catches it the same day.

How it works

1. Once a day, WP Foreman asks the website to send one short email through WordPress’s normal email function, exactly the way a contact form would. Whatever sends the website’s email (WP Mail SMTP, FluentSMTP, Post SMTP, a mail service, or the web server itself) is used as is. WP Foreman changes nothing.
2. The email goes to a one-time address at check.wpforeman.com, which only WP Foreman receives. The website can’t be used to send email anywhere else this way.
3. When it arrives, WP Foreman records how long it took and whether it passed the three checks mail providers use to spot fakes: SPF, DKIM and DMARC.

Needs WP Foreman plugin 0.8.3 or newer. Update it from the Updates page.

What the results mean

• Delivering: the email arrived. All good.
• Fails SPF, DKIM or DMARC: it arrived, but mail providers may put the website’s emails in spam. The website’s domain needs its email records set up for the service that sends its email (that service’s setup guide lists them).
• Not sending: WordPress couldn’t send it at all. WP Foreman shows WordPress’s error and what it usually means, for example a wrong SMTP password, or a server that can’t send email without an SMTP plugin.
• Not arriving: WordPress said it sent the email, but it hadn’t arrived 30 minutes later. It was probably rejected or lost along the way. This is common on websites that send through the web server’s own mail with no SMTP plugin.

Forms only

Some form plugins send their notifications through a mail service directly, with their own add-on, instead of through WordPress. For example, the Gravity Forms Mailgun, SendGrid and Postmark add-ons. When one of those is active and the daily test fails, the result reads Forms only: form emails still go out, but everything else the website sends doesn’t. That includes password resets, new-user emails, and store and plugin notices.

It shows as a warning rather than a failure. To fix the rest, set up an SMTP plugin (WP Mail SMTP, FluentSMTP or Gravity SMTP) with the same mail service account, and the next check turns green.

Where you’ll see it

• The Website emails tile and card on the site’s Overview, with the last two weeks of checks and a Check now button.
• Your Dashboard under Needs you, and the morning summary, while emails aren’t sending or arriving, or fail SPF, DKIM or DMARC.
• The site’s log: one entry when emails stop arriving, and one when they’re arriving again, not one a day.
• Client reports, under Website health (“Website emails: Delivering”).

Switching it off

In the site’s Settings, switch off Email delivery check. The website stops sending test emails and you won’t get delivery alerts.