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How to send email from WordPress and other apps

Maxim Tsitsejev
Updated

Applies to: All plans (Self-Managed and Managed).

Before you start: You need your WordPress admin login (or your app's admin login) and access to your client area at my.maxinodes.com, where you create the mailbox your site will send from.

Your website sends email of its own: contact-form messages, password resets, WooCommerce order confirmations and receipts, plugin notices. At Maxinodes that mail goes out through our outbound mail relay, just like mail from your mailboxes, and it counts toward your domain's hourly sending limit. It works without any setup, but for reliable delivery from a proper From address we recommend sending it through a real mailbox with an SMTP plugin.

Recommended: send through a mailbox on your plan

  1. Create a mailbox for the site, for example website@yourdomain.com, on your service page in the client area under Email Accounts. See How to create a mailbox.
  2. In WordPress, go to Plugins -> Add New and install a reputable SMTP plugin.
  3. In the plugin's settings, choose the generic SMTP option (often called Other SMTP) and enter:
    • SMTP host: mail.yourdomain.com (or node11.maxinodes.com until the certificate for mail.yourdomain.com is in place)
    • Encryption and port: SSL/TLS on port 465, or STARTTLS (TLS) on port 587
    • Authentication: on
    • Username: the full email address, for example website@yourdomain.com
    • Password: that mailbox's password
    • From address: the same mailbox address
  4. Save, then send yourself a message with the plugin's test-email option.

Result: Your site's mail is sent from a real address on your domain, and replies to it arrive in a mailbox you can read.

Other apps (Joomla, Drupal, shop software) work the same way: enter the same details in the app's own SMTP or mail settings. The settings for every mailbox are also shown under Account Configuration Details on the Email Accounts page — see Mail app settings for your mailbox (IMAP, POP3, SMTP).

If your email is Professional Email (Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace)

Use your SMTP plugin's built-in Microsoft 365 or Google option: the plugin signs in to your Microsoft or Google account and sends through their API. Typing Microsoft's or Google's SMTP server name (such as smtp.office365.com or smtp.gmail.com) does not work from our servers, because SMTP connections from websites on the standard mail ports are redirected to our own mail server.

This matters when your domain's mail records point at Microsoft or Google: its SPF and DKIM records are set up for them, so mail your site sends directly from our server may fail those checks and end up in spam.

Sending limits and bulk mail

  • Everything your domain sends counts toward one hourly limit — mail from your mailboxes and from your site alike, with or without an SMTP plugin. If you run a busy shop, check your plan's limit in Mailbox and sending limits. Over the limit, some messages are held and sent later and the rest are refused with a bounce.
  • Newsletters and other bulk mail need a dedicated sending service, not your hosting's mail: bulk mail is not allowed from your mailboxes, and a mailing-list plugin would soon run into the hourly limit. Connect the service through its own plugin or API; over SMTP on the standard ports, your site cannot reach it.
  • Staging copies send mail too. Turn off outgoing mail on a staging site so it does not email real customers — see How to create a staging copy of your site.

Troubleshooting this task

  • The test email never arrives. Check the recipient's spam or Junk folder, then the plugin's log. "Authentication failed" means the username or password is wrong; the username must be the full email address.
  • The plugin can't connect, or shows a certificate error. Check the port and encryption pair: 465 with SSL/TLS, 587 with STARTTLS. For a certificate error, use node11.maxinodes.com as the host until AutoSSL covers mail.yourdomain.com.
  • It worked, then stopped after you changed the mailbox password. Update the password in the plugin too. After 10 failed logins within 5 minutes the mailbox is locked for 5 minutes, and a site that keeps retrying an old password keeps it locked — see My mail app can't connect, or keeps asking for my password.
  • Some messages bounce with "has exceeded the max emails per hour". Your domain reached its hourly sending limit. See Mailbox and sending limits.

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