basic question about contact forms

  • Hello. I have been trying to set up a contact form using a few different popular contact form plugins but nothing is working and after some research it seems that I need to use SMTP to make it work. The thing I dont understand is that my site admin email is the one I want wordpress to use to send the contact form entries to the same site admin email (my person gmail account)…basically sending emails to myself. Is that how it works or do I need to set up another gmail account? Im confused.

    • This topic was modified 4 years, 7 months ago by Jan Dembowski. Reason: Moved to Fixing WordPress, this is not an Everything else WordPress topic
Viewing 2 replies - 1 through 2 (of 2 total)

  • Hello. I have been trying to set up a contact form using a few different popular contact form plugins but nothing is working and after some research it seems that I need to use SMTP to make it work.

    So it appears all the contact forms you tested are actually working, except your hosting server is not sending the emails. Which is why you need to use SMTP (a third-party email provider) to send the emails.

    The thing I dont understand is that my site admin email is the one I want wordpress to use to send the contact form entries to the same site admin email (my person gmail account)…basically sending emails to myself.

    There should not be any problem sending an email to yourself.

    Though, for security reasons, I PERSONALLY would not let my WordPress website authenticate to my PRIMARY Gmail account, especially if the plugin is going to store my Gmail credentials. If a bad actor were to have access to your site and blasts out spam using your connect Gmail account, you could have your account suspended by Google. Or worse.

    I would create a new Gmail account for this reason, or, better yet, use a transactional email provider (Mailgun, Postmark, Pepipost, Mailjet, etc). Using a transactional email provider is a MUST if you’re expecting to SEND a ton of emails from your WordPress site (not just the contact forms), as Gmail has daily sending limits.

    Good luck, and stay safe!

    Thread Starter kabbalisticvillage

    (@kabbalisticvillage)

    @gappiah thank you for answering!

Viewing 2 replies - 1 through 2 (of 2 total)
  • The topic ‘basic question about contact forms’ is closed to new replies.