How to Configure WordPress SMTP (2022)

You have successfully built a WordPress-based e-commerce or lead generation website. Later you realized that none of the emails from WordPress were going out. You are not receiving notification about the contact form submission; none of your customers receive order confirmation emails.

At a point, you even tried to reset your password, and you are not receiving that email.

Are you panicking now? Are you wondering what is happening with your WordPress website and why you and your customers are not receiving emails?

Do not pull your hair. The problem and solution will be easy. And I am here to make it easy for you.

It is most likely that your WordPress website is not configured with SMTP correctly in most cases. We can use a simple plugin to configure your SMTP with your WordPress website if that is the case. Then your WordPress can send those beautiful mails seamlessly to your customer’s inbox.

So, this blog post will guide you on how to configure SMTP on your WordPress website, step by step.

What Is SMTP

Before configuring SMTP with your WordPress website, you need to know what SMTP is and its importance when sending an email to someone.

SMTP or Simple Mail Transfer Protocol is an email protocol used to send email messages from one email account to another via the Internet.

Email protocols are predefined rules used to communicate between email clients and mail accounts to exchange information effectively and quickly. There are other email protocols like POP and IMAP along with SMTP. Still, SMTP is the most popular protocol for sending out emails.

Why Is SMTP Important

SMTP is crucial when you send an email to someone because your email won’t make it to its destination without a proper SMTP server.

The SMTP server will verify that an outgoing email is actually coming from an active email account. And it is authenticated and authorized to send an email on behalf of the domain and the email address. You see, the SMTP will be the first security measurement to safeguard your inbox and the receiver’s inbox from fraudulent emails.

If the SMTP server cannot deliver your email by any chance, it will return to the sender’s inbox. This will help you understand that the receiving address was wrong or that the receiving server refused to accept the email for specified reasons. So as a sender, you can rectify those issues effectively.

Suppose you are sending any mail using a properly authenticated SMTP system. In that case, you will have a higher delivery chance and lower failure of your emails. Do you want to send some emails that will go directly to the spam folder? I don’t think you want that.

Hosts Like Rovity Will Block Unauthorized Emails

Anyone can send emails by using a proper authentication method or not using any authentication method at all. By default, WordPress used to send emails using an unauthenticated method. It uses the PHP mail system with no user credentials.

Maintaining a healthy email server with a good reputation is complex and expensive. It is not as easy as maintaining a web hosting server. Responsible hosts like Rovity will block unauthorized emails originating from our infrastructure. This will help us protect our network and its reputation among various email service providers.

That’s how we fine-tuned our email delivery system, and that’s why all our emails are going to the receiver’s inbox.

So like I said at Rovity, we blocked simple PHP mail. We encourage you to send emails from your WordPress websites using a properly configured SMTP system. So in the next section, I will show you how to configure SMTP authentication on a WordPress website and start sending emails worry-free.

Remember, this will help you achieve more delivery and open rates.

Create an Email Account in Your DirectAdmin Control Panel

Before starting the WordPress admin dashboard configuration, we first need to create an email address. If your website is hosted with Rovity, you can create email addresses from the DirectAdmin control panel. If your host uses another control panel, the steps will be mostly the same.

We will create an email address. You can skip this part if you have already made an email account.

So now, please log into your DirectAdmin control panel. Suppose you have multiple domains hosted on the same DirectAdmin account. In that case, you need to make sure that you have selected the correct domain.

You can choose the domain from the Domain drop-down menu at the top of the screen.

Then click on the E-mail Accounts icon under the E-mail Manager category.

On this E-mail Accounts page, click on the Create Account button. You will then see the Create Mail Account screen.

We need to fill out the text boxes with appropriate information.

Since we will use this email address on the WordPress website, I suggest you give a generic username. For example, you can use hello, info, contact, etc.

In this example, I will use contact as the username. So, my mail address will be contact@rovity-demo.xyz.

Please make sure you are using a strong password there. You can leave the rest of the fields for this purpose.

Once you are satisfied with the details you gave, click on the Create Account button.

You will see Account created popup with username, password, and SMTP server details.

Please make sure that you copy this information somewhere safe because we will use this in the next step.

Let’s Add Email Credentials to the WordPress Admin Dashboard

Okay, now we will go to the WordPress admin dashboard to configure the SMTP using the email address that we just created.

Now click on Plugins > Add New. And on this WordPress plugin installation page, search for WP Mail SMTP by WPForms.

We need to install and activate this plugin. You can use any other SMTP plugin. However, I see that this plugin is easy to use, with many features available in the free version.

Once you activate this plugin, you can see the setup wizard configure the SMTP.

So click on the Let’s Get Started button here.

You will see many SMTP services listed on this Choose Your SMTP Mailer screen.

You can use premium providers like Sendinblue, Mailgun, SendGrid, SparkPost etc. You will need to upgrade to the Pro version if you wish to use services like Amazon SES and Zoho Mail.

You can also use a Google Workspace account or your free Gmail account.

We use the email address we created on your DirectAdmin account in this example. So, we need to choose Other SMTP and then click on the Save and Continue button.

On this Configure Mailer Settings screen, we will need to input a few details. Remember I told you to store the login credentials and SMTP details?

We are going to need that to fill in this setup wizard. Please make sure you replace your domain and email credentials with this demo account.

SMTP Host: This is your domain with a mail prefix; in this example, it is mail.rovity-demo.xyz. Sometimes, you may need to remove mail in front of the domain name and use a naked domain like rovity-demo.xyz.

This will vary based on the host or the DNS settings, especially when using Cloudflare.

Encryption: TLS
SMTP Port: 587
Authentication: Make sure you have toggled on Enable Authentication.
SMTP Username: This is your email address like contact@rovity-demo.xyz
SMTP Password: You chose this password when you created the mail ID.
From Name: This can be your company name or service name. This is the name people will see when they receive your email from your WordPress website.
Force From Name: I recommend you toggle on this option.
From Email: Please use the same email address you have given as the SMTP username here.
Force From Email: I recommend you toggle on this option.

Now please double-check the data you have input there and once you are ready, click on the Save and Continue button.

The next screen will give you the option to enable some features. You can leave it as the default value or modify it if you need.

Then click on the Save and Continue button.

You can skip the next step when the plugin asks you to help improve the plugin and other features.

The plugin will ask you to enter the license key if you wish to use the pro features on the last screen. I don’t think you usually need the pro feature for a typical use case, so you can also skip this step.

The SMTP plugin will now validate the mailer configuration by sending a test mail to the admin user of the WordPress website.

If there is any configuration issue, the plugin will show you an error message and an option to go back to the setup wizard.

Or you can go back to the previous step using the browser’s back button.

If all configurations are correct, you will see a successful message. You will also see the test mail in your email inbox.

You can click on the Finish Setup button at the bottom of the setup wizard screen to return to the WordPress admin dashboard.

If the setup is not successful or you wish to change the SMTP configuration, you can always do that.

From your WordPress admin, go to WP Mail SMTP > Settings and update the changes you need.

Summary

I hope configuring SMTP with your WordPress website is very easy to perform. And I expect you have successfully received your test mail.

If you still see any issues related to the email sending, it may be due to other reasons. In that case, I suggest you reach out to your hosting service provider for assistance.

If your WordPress website is hosted with Rovity, please feel free to contact our Technical Support team or initiate a live chat session. We will be happy to take a look at the configuration.

If you wish to migrate your WordPress site to have better email deliverability and a powerful WordPress hosting infrastructure, Rovity is the best choice.

I am sure that you will love the service quality we are offering. And that’s why we became India’s fastest growing top shared hosting company focusing on WordPress hosting.