Setting Up Email Alerts

Would you like to be notified of email failures on your WordPress site? With WP Mail SMTP, you can receive various alerts for emails that fail to send from your site.

This tutorial will show you how to set up email alerts on your site with WP Mail SMTP.

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Before getting started, you’ll first need to make sure WP Mail SMTP is installed and activated on your WordPress site and that you’ve verified your license.

What Are Email Alerts?

WP Mail SMTP email alerts inform you of email failures on your WordPress site through multiple different services. For example, if your website is unable to send emails, you’ll automatically receive text messages for every failure.

Alerts help catch any misconfigurations in your WP Mail SMTP settings.

Setting Up Alerts

To begin setting up email alerts from the WordPress dashboard, go to WP Mail SMTP » Settings and click on the Alerts tab.

This will take you to the Alerts page, where you can select any of these 4 different service integrations to deliver your email alerts:

• Email
• Slack
• SMS via Twilio Alerts
• Webhooks

You’ll need to set up integration with at least one of these services to enable email alerts on your site. In the following sections, we’ll guide you through setting up each service.

Email

With the Email option, email alerts are delivered to up to 3 email addresses. These alerts are sent via a secure API and do not rely on your site’s email configuration.

As a result, you’ll still get alerts even if your site cannot send emails.

Unlike the other service integrations, Email notifications will only be sent once every 30 minutes. As a result, if you have multiple failed emails within this period, you’ll only be notified of the first one.

Setting Up Email Integration

To enable email alerts, ensure the Email Alerts option is toggled to the on position.

Type the intended recipient address into the Send To field to set an address.

If you’d like to add another address, click the Add Another Email Address button.

Next, enter the additional email into the second Send To field.

When you’re finished setting up email integration, you can either save your settings right away or continue to add other integrations.

Slack

With Slack integration, alerts are sent to your Slack workspaces, or to individual members of your team. Unlike the Email integration, you can have as many Slack configurations as you need. Slack integration utilizes a webhook to facilitate communication.

Setting Up Slack Integration

To use Slack integration, you’ll need to create a Slack app and add its webhook URL to your site. Before doing this, set the Slack Alerts option to the on position.

Next, open the Slack API page and create a new app. In the Create an app dialog, choose From scratch to start building your app.

Now you’ll be able to choose an App Name for your Slack app.

You’ll also need to choose a workspace for your app from the workspace dropdown list.

Once you’ve chosen your workspace, click the Create App button to generate your new Slack app.

Once your Slack app is created, you can add both short and long descriptions, an app image, and a background color for the app under Display Information.

We’ve included an example of what a finished description would look like below:

When you’re finished setting up your app as you like, click the Save Changes button at the bottom right of the screen to save your settings.

The next step is to enable and copy the webhook needed to connect your Slack app to WP Mail SMTP on your site.

To do this, click on Features » Incoming Webhooks in the sidebar of the Slack API page.

The Incoming Webhooks page allows you to manage all incoming webhooks for your app.

To get started, set the Activate Incoming Webhooks toggle to On.

Next, under Webhook URLs for Your Workspace, click on the Add New Webhook to Workspace button to generate the webhook URL for your app.

Since your Slack app will send notifications to a channel or individual, you’ll need to choose the intended recipient from the list of available channels and persons. To do this, click on the dropdown list and choose a channel or individual.

Now grant permission to your app by clicking the Allow button.

After the operation completes, you’ll be redirected to the Incoming Webhooks page, where you’ll have a new Webhook URL for your app. Copy the Webhook URL from Slack by clicking the Copy button.

Finally, paste the webhook URL you copied from Slack into the Webhook URL field in your WP Mail SMTP Alert settings.

Once you’re done with this step, either save your settings or continue to add other integrations.

Once everything is set up correctly, you’ll get notifications in Slack whenever your site fails to send an email.

SMS via Twilio Alerts

With Twilio integration, email alerts can be sent from your site to any mobile device. SMS alerts are sent via your Twilio phone number.

Due to SMS character limits, this service integration cannot provide you with extensive details. Instead, the message you receive will include the title and log number corresponding to the error that triggered the alert.

As with Slack, there is no limit on the number of Twilio connections.

Setting Up Twilio Integration

To set up Twilio integration, ensure that you have the SMS via Twilio Alerts option toggled to the on position.

If you don’t already have a Twilio phone number, you’ll need to create one. To do this, log in to your Twilio account and click the Get a Twilio phone number button.

Once your number has been successfully generated, you’re ready to continue setting up Twilio integration on your site.

First, copy your Account SID from the Twilio console.

Then, paste your Account SID into the Twilio Account ID field in WP Mail SMTP.

You’ll also need to copy the Auth Token from the Twilio console.

Next, paste the Auth Token in the Twilio Auth Token field in WP Mail SMTP.

Now, copy your Twilio phone number from the Twilio console.

In your Alerts settings in WP Mail SMTP, paste your Twilio phone number in the From Phone Number field.

Finally, add the phone number that will receive alerts in the To Phone Number field.

You can now continue to set up other integrations or save your settings.

Webhooks

With webhooks integration, your site can send notifications through any service with webhooks support. As with the Slack and Twilio integrations, there’s no limit on the number of webhooks integrations.

Setting Up Webhooks Integration

First, to integrate Webhooks with your site set the Webhook Alerts toggle to the on position.

Next, copy the Webhook URL from the service you’d like to utilize and place it in the Webhook URL field.

If you’d like to add another webhook integration, click Add Another Webhook URL.

Another Webhook URL field will become available.

To add an additional webhook integration, paste the new webhook URL in the new Webhook URL field.

We’ve included the output of an example webhook alert below:

Once you’ve finished setting up your webhooks integrations, don’t forget to save your settings.

Saving Your Settings

Once you’ve added the services you’d like to use, you’ll need to save your changes to complete the setup.

To do this, click the Save Settings button at the bottom left of the interface.

Testing Email Alerts

After saving your settings, you can test the services you configured to ensure they work correctly. To do so, click the Test Alerts button next to Save Settings.

You should see a success notification after clicking on this button.

The alert test will trigger all the services you configured. So, if you set up email alerts, for example, you’ll receive an email with the test results in the email address(es) you added.

Frequently Asked Questions

Below, we’ve listed some of the most common questions we receive about email alerts.

Why am I unable to receive Twilio SMS alerts?

If you’re not receiving Twilio alerts, first ensure that your Twilio phone number is active. To do this, go to Phone Numbers » Manage » Active Numbers in your Twilio console.

You should see at least one number listed in the Active Numbers list.

If your number is active but you are still not receiving alerts, you may be unable to send messages to your region due to your geolocation permissions settings. You’ll need to adjust your geolocation permissions in order to resolve this issue.

From the Twilio console, go to Messaging » Settings » Geo permissions to view your geolocation settings.

Next, find your country or region and ensure that it has been enabled.

That’s it! Now you know how to set up Alerts on your site with WP Mail SMTP.

Next, would you like to easily track how emails are performing on your site? Learn more in our complete guide to email reports in WP Mail SMTP.