Are you having problems with Easy Digital Downloads email not sending?
When you’re selling digital products on your website, customers expect to receive download links instantly after they add an item to their shopping cart and check out. But sometimes Easy Digital Downloads (EDD) doesn’t send the purchase email, meaning you have to spend extra admin time sorting everything out.
Lucky for you, this is an easy problem to fix! In this article, we’ll show you how to fix EDD to resolve issues with emails not sending.
Fix Your Easy Digital Download Emails Now
Easy Digital Downloads Didn’t Send Email Link?
Are you testing Easy Digital Downloads but didn’t receive an email with the product link after completing checkout? Or maybe you’ve received reports from your customers that they’re not getting sent links to download files?
This is a very common problem for Easy Digital Downloads and many other WordPress plugins that send transactional emails.
The issue probably isn’t that there’s a bug in the plugin or that you’ve set something up incorrectly. The most likely cause is that you’re relying on the default email function in WordPress.
WordPress uses a PHP mail function called wp_mail(). The problem with this function is that it’s not very secure, meaning your messages may be intercepted. For this reason, many web hosts choose to disable it. You can read more about this issue and an FAQ with common questions in our guide to fixing WordPress not sending emails.
Another issue with the wp_mail() function is that the emails it generates are often marked as spam. This may mean that users don’t receive emails sent by Easy Digital Downloads, even if your WordPress site sends them successfully.
Easy Digital Downloads Email Not Sending? How to Fix
There are two things you can do if EDD isn’t sending emails properly. First, check your settings to make sure you’ve set up the plugin correctly, and then install the WP Mail SMTP plugin to fix deliverability issues.
In This Article
Step 1: Check Easy Digital Downloads Email Settings
A common reason for Easy Digital Downloads emails not sending is filling out the email settings of the plug incorrectly.
EDD sends two kinds of emails: Notifications to the site admin or store owner and purchase receipts to customers.
To access Easy Digital Downloads setting in your WordPress dashboard, go to Downloads » Settings.
Click the Emails tab to access the general email settings for EDD. Make sure the From Email is set to an active email that you’ll actually be using to receive replies from users on your mailing list. Double-check you haven’t made any typos in your email.
Ideally, this email should match the domain of the website you’re sending it from. This will reduce the risk of any of your emails being marked as spam. It also looks more professional to the user if they receive an email from your domain rather than a generic Gmail or other free email address.
On this settings page, you can also upload a logo to be displayed in HTML emails if you wish.
You may also see a button to Activate WP Mail SMTP. We’ll explain more about this in the next section of the tutorial.
Click the Save Changes button if you made any changes on this screen.
Next, click the Purchase Receipts link at the top of the screen to check your settings for purchase receipt emails.
On this settings area, you can edit the emails that are sent to customers when they make a purchase from your WordPress site.
Keep in mind that certain words and phrases like “free” or “click here” in the subject of an email may trigger the spam filter on the recipient’s email server and block them from receiving the email. Check the Purchase Email Subject if you’ve edited it from the default in case you may have included any words that spammers commonly use.
You can repeat this process to edit the email template on the Sale Notification Settings page. Sale notification emails are sent to the admin email when an EDD sale is completed. If you’re not receiving these emails, make sure you’ve entered a suitable subject line and email text.
Next, scroll down to check that the email address is correct and that you’ve not checked the Disable Admin Notifications setting.
Remember to click the Save Changes button at the bottom of the page if you’ve changed any of the settings.
The Purchase Receipt settings page also includes some useful buttons to preview how your purchase receipt looks and to send a test email.
Click the Send Test Email button to send an example purchase receipt to your WordPress admin email address.
If you receive the email, you’ll know that Easy Digital Downloads is successfully sending emails from your WordPress site. However, this doesn’t mean your customers will receive them 100% of the time.
Even if your sender email and other email settings in Easy Digital Downloads are correct and your test email sends ok, it’s a good idea to install an SMTP plugin.
An SMTP plugin like WP Mail SMTP will reduce the risk of your emails being marked as spam and fix other WordPress email deliverability issues. This will work not just for Easy Digital Downloads but also for all the emails sent by other plugins on your WordPress site.
Step 2: Install WP Mail SMTP
WP Mail SMTP is installed by default by the Easy Digital Downloads setup wizard. If you left the option for Reliable Email Delivery checked, it should have installed the plugin for you.
If you deselected the option for reliable email delivery or skipped this step of the setup wizard, WP Mail SMTP may not be installed.
To install the WP Mail SMTP plugin from EDD, you can re-run the setup wizard.
Navigate to Downloads » Tools in your WordPress dashboard and click the Restart the Setup Wizard button.
You can then go back through the setup wizard and make sure Reliable Email Delivery is checked when you get to step 4, Conversion and Optimization tools. Click the Save & Continue button on this page, and the wizard will install WP Mail SMTP for you.
To activate WP Mail SMTP, go to Downloads » Settings, and click the Emails tab.
Scroll down to the bottom of the page and click the Activate WPMail SMTP button.
You should see a message that the plugin has been activated. You can then click the button to Run the WP Mail SMTP Setup Wizard.
You can also install WP Mail SMTP manually from Plugins » Add New in your WordPress dashboard and search for “WP Mail SMTP” if you have any problems activating it from within EDD.
If you’ve purchased WP Mail SMTP Pro, you can follow these detailed instructions on how to install the WP Mail SMTP plugin.
Step 3: Choose an SMTP Mailer
The WP Mail SMTP setup wizard will walk you through the steps of connecting your WordPress site to an email provider.
To get started, click the Let’s Get Started button on the welcome screen.
In the next step, you can choose your SMTP mailer.
You can choose any of these services to send your email (although some, like Amazon SES and Zoho Mail, are available on Pro plans only), but we recommend SendLayer, Brevo (formerly Sendinblue), or SMTP.com for most sites. If your site won’t be sending many emails and you want a free SMTP service, you can use Gmail. Read our guide on the best transactional email providers for more advice on choosing a mailer.
Scroll down and click the Save & Continue button once you’ve chosen your mailer. This will take you through the steps of configuring your chosen SMTP service.
The process of setting up each mailer differs slightly depending on the service you use. You can see full instructions for each mail service by following the link to the docs in the table below.
| Mailers available in all versions | Mailers in WP Mail SMTP Pro |
|---|---|
| SendLayer | Amazon SES |
| SMTP.com | Microsoft 365 / Outlook.com |
| Brevo | Zoho Mail |
| Google Workspace / Gmail | |
| Mailgun | |
| Postmark | |
| SendGrid | |
| SparkPost | |
| Other SMTP |
Step 4: Enable WP Mail SMTP Features
After you’ve finished setting up your SMTP email service, the wizard will prompt you to enable additional email features.
The first two features are enabled by default (and must be enabled for the plugin to work properly.) These features are:
- Improved Email Deliverability (Ensure your emails are sent successfully and reliably.)
- Email Error Tracking (Easily spot errors causing delivery issues.)
In addition to these two features, there are several optional features depending on whether you have installed the free or Pro version of WP Mail SMTP.
All versions of the plugin include the Weekly Email Summary, which will send you statistics each week about emails sent from your site.
Other email features you can choose to enable in the Pro version of the plugin include:
- Detailed Email Logs: Keeps records of all the emails sent from your WordPress site.
- Complete Email Reports: Track the status of each email, track opens and clicks, and view deliverability reports.
- Instant Email Alerts: Get an alert via email, SMS notifications, Slack, or another service via webhook when an email fails to send.
- Manage Default Notifications: Control the email notifications that are sent from your WordPress site.
You can choose to enable as many of these features as you wish. For the best experience using WP Mail SMTP, we recommend enabling them all. This will significantly improve the process of managing your digital downloads store and troubleshooting issues with EDD emails.
For example, when you’ve enabled detailed email logs and reports, you can view a dashboard widget that shows at a glance how many emails have been sent and failed each day.
Enabling email logging also gives you access to additional features such as:
- Exporting logs as a CSV or Excel file
- Resending failed emails
- Saving email attachments
- And more
When you’ve selected the email features you want to enable, click the Save and Continue button so the wizard can continue setup.
If you’re using the free version of the plugin and you selected any Pro features, you’ll be invited to upgrade to WP Mail SMTP Pro. You can then enter your license key and click the Connect button to link the plugin to your account and access the Pro features.
After you’ve completed the setup wizard, you’re ready to go! Whatever problems you had with Easy Digital Downloads not sending emails should be fixed.
Fix Your Easy Digital Downloads Emails Now
Next, Check Out These Affiliate Plugins
If you’re selling digital products online, running an affiliate program is a great way to boost your sales. We tested some of the best affiliate plugins for WordPress to automate the process of onboarding affiliates and managing commission payments.
Or, if you are considering selling physical products as well as digital products in your eCommerce store, you can find out more about using WP Mail SMTP to log and track WooCommerce emails.
And if you’re seeing SMTP host errors in WP Mail SMTP, see our dedicated troubleshooting guide for help.
Ready to fix your emails? Get started today with the best WordPress SMTP plugin. If you don’t have the time to fix your emails, you can get full White Glove Setup assistance as an extra purchase, and there’s a 14-day money-back guarantee for all paid plans.
