Your WordPress website occasionally needs to send emails – for example, when someone resets their password, maintenance or security notices are sent or a visitor fills out a contact form.
The standard PHP function mail(), which sends mails directly from the web server, is often used for this. This worked well for a long time, but because spam has increased, mail providers have introduced stricter rules – as a result, many mails from unauthenticated servers are rejected.
This is particularly the case if the web server sends emails from your domain(…@example.ch), but your mail server recognises that it has not triggered the email itself. As a result, emails may arrive at other recipients, but not at you as the website operator.
I use the WP Mail SMTP plugin for my customers to ensure that these emails arrive more reliably. This means that the emails are sent via your official mail server and arrive much more securely. If you have a normal SMTP mail server via your hosting and don’t need logs for sent emails, the free version of the plugin is sufficient.
Sending emails from WordPress with Outlook
More and more companies are using Outlook from Microsoft to manage their email traffic. The service ensures greater security for emails and mailboxes, better spam control and a higher delivery rate.
Previously, you could send emails via the Outlook SMTP server (Microsoft 365) using a username and password, but this service will soon be switched off. If you do nothing, there could be error messages and undeliverable emails, which can also affect the security of your website (e.g. through undelivered warnings) and can lead to users no longer being able to access WordPress.
To ensure that your website can continue to send emails via the Microsoft mail server, you will need an oAuth connection in future. I recommend that you set this up as soon as possible. In order to do so, you will need to use the Pro version of the WP Mail SMTP plugin.
Free usage with a maintenance contract
From the “Extended” level upwards, Say Hello maintenance contracts include the use and costs of this plugin version at no extra charge; only extraordinary work in collaboration with an IT manager is charged at a previously agreed hourly rate. So I take the work off your hands and you no longer have to worry about mails not being sent correctly.
If you don’t yet have a maintenance contract for your WordPress website, please get in touch.
